The U.S. military presence across the globe is staggering with over 465,000 troops deployed in 150 countries at a cost of over $146 billion per year---excluding Iraq. This includes 98,087 troops stationed in Europe (66,418 in Germany alone), 35,517 in Japan, and 30,983 in Korea. Fairfield Counties annual share of this cost is $1.5 billion, or $4,526 per household. In fact, Fairfield County residents pay more per capita for the protection of Germany and Japan than do the Germans and Japanese.

Try to imagine yourself with a credit card debt of over $279,000. Imagine continuing to rack up new debt and interest of almost $2,000 per month with no attempt to pay it down. At what point would you declare you had a problem? At what point would you say you could not afford to keep up with the payments? At what point would creditors refuse to lend you more money?

There is a simple reason, best described by Milton Friedman, famous Nobel Prize winner in economics, why government can’t ever work effectively, on any level, and should always be limited to the fewest of functions. It is the four ways in which we can spend money. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) testified last week that the total spending for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could amount to almost $2.4 trillion. That cost to Fairfield County (FFC) would be $23 billion, or $73,000 per FFC family. Congress has squandered American blood and treasure at such an unbelievable magnitude that it boggles the mind.

Most people think that health care costs too much, is unaffordable for some, loaded with wasteful bureaucracy, and the entire system needs to be reformed. For example, Medicaid provides care for low-income Americans but costs $20,000 per family, twice that of private insurance. Health services regulation, all 133,000 pages, costs $339.2 billion more than the benefits it claims to provide. Government run healthcare is sick.