forces the issue. Practically, Social security and health care entitlements comprise about 50% of the budget. They have to be reformed or they will continue to be a larger and larger part of the budget. Since we are already deficit spending, raising taxes will have to be raised quite a bit to cover those additional costs. We could cut the military, but that is only about 15% of the budget. So if you cut the whole thing or a large portion that would help but that isn’t feasible. Even if any of that makes sense to do though, it still won’t happen in the political environment we live in. Doesn’t matter who is in control.

The only possible practical solution that I see is people personally taking responsibility for their own future. Planning for retirement includes medical care for themselves in addition to regular retirement planning. The government has actually made this somewhat feasible with HSAs and other tax shelters. People just need to stop paying hundreds of dollars a month on interest for new cars, cell phone plans, the latest and greatest cell phones, tv plans, other unnecessary things, and instead invest in their future. All of those things are luxury items and can be reduced to something more practical or eliminated entirely from a budget. Now there are still some people that are in such a circumstance that they can’t put themselves in a position to retire with the means to take care of their medical needs and/or living expenses. Or they have some sort of medical condition that requires much more expense than normal. Those people we can still help. But if the people that can sacrifice, do so, it won’t cost us 50% of the budget to pay for caring for the poor and needy.