The Iraq war was a gigantic subsidy to the oil industry.

Successful enterprises depend on government intervention now because there is no longer any other option available due to the depth of current government intervention.

There were successful enterprises before government intervention on their behalf. Otherwise we'd still be living in caves.

The comment didn't say they were. They just rolled all of the taxpayer-funded incentives up in the same blanket.

Umm, yes. 100ml of water plus 10ml of water frozen as ice weighs more than 100ml of water without the 10ml of ice.

The Bush administration may have okayed them as a Federal vendor, but Bush had nothing to do with them being assigned to complete a task that wasn't signed into law until long after he left office.

I think Bush is an asshole, but this failure can't be laid at his feet.

You can't lay off US government employees in most cases, which means the IT department would do nothing but grow regardless of need. It's also hard to fire the incompetent, which has effects that should be obvious.

Indeed. I'd like to see some corporate death sentences handed down.

Yup. "Fair share" is an ever-moving goalpost. It's invariably used to provoke an emotional reaction, rather than a logical one.

Indeed. If they don't leave you any other options, there's nothing hypocritical about receiving something from the government while arguing to change the paradigm.

Personally, I see it as the only way to change things at this point. By having as many people as possible bleed social services dry, there might come a time when it is not possible to sustain the system without making rational, positive changes to it.

Bah, that should be "bread lines."

The same thing happens in other types of economies, particularly the "Marxist" ones. You might have a job, but good luck buying anything because nothing is available. Think about the broad lines in the old USSR. It doesn't help to have a job if the nation's price controls mean that there's not enough supply to go around.

If the "general welfare" clause was intended to be interpreted as broadly as you claim here, there would be no need for Constitutional amendments.

Additionally, while it would complicate the paperwork to enter into an agreement (for some people, usually those with more than enough money to pay for a lawyer to do the work), it would drastically simplify the dissolution of such a union. The latter tends to be the more contentious under current US law; far more so than is necessary.

The use of a common private contract would actually vastly simplify most estate rights. States would have whatever rules they felt necessary to determine the above by default, and a private contract would specify any changes desired by the contracting individuals.

States have no business determining who should be able to enter into those sorts of contracts, except to the extent of determining who can legally enter into private contracts of any sort.

It's effectively the same thing, except it's not. It would allow a lot more fine tuning of rights and additionally would prevent others from interfering in who makes those contracts. It would completely eliminate the gay marriage rights debate, which does currently prevent two people from using the powers of "spouses" you listed above in very many States.

Any chemical birth control also contains the means to abort an implanted embryo. While I am politically pro-choice, I do understand the opposing position, and the previous sentence is why they oppose birth control. It is biologically equivalent to abortion, even though it happens at a much earlier stage than is possible with surgical abortions.