Connect the Dots

Exam Question No. 1: What two characteristics do the following things have in common?

Social Security
Medicare
Drug War
War on Terrorism
War in Iraq
Education
Budget Deficit
U.S. Dollar

•	Social Security is nothing more than a bankrupt welfare program, one that is funded entirely by monies taken from young and middle-aged people.
•	Medicare is another welfare program whose spending is going through the roof and whose regulations have plunged the medical profession into depression, despondency, and dependency.
•	The Drug War is a decades-long program that has utterly failed to accomplish its supposed end and whose actual results have been overwhelmingly destructive.
•	Terrorism against the United States is rooted in a foreign policy that has killed and injured foreigners for decades and that supports brutal regimes that kill and injure their own people; it is also the excuse for abridging the liberties of the American people.
•	The war in Iraq has resulted in an estimated 100,000 innocent people killed along with more than 1,500 U.S. soldiers; the Iraqi people continue to suffer under a brutal military dictatorship that denies them fundamental rights, due process of law, and the rule of law.
•	Education, especially in the public-school sector, continues to cry out for “reform” despite ever-increasing tax monies thrown at the problem.
•	The budget deficit is soaring through the roof, with out-of-control spending threatening the well-being of the nation.
•	The U.S. dollar continues to plunge in international financial markets as a direct consequence of out-of-control spending.

Answers to Exam Question 1: All those things have the following two characteristics in common: (1) All of them are an absolute mess — in crisis, if you will; and (2) They’re all run by the federal government.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.