Cut useless government spending

The economy is on the brink of collapse. Big banks and insurance companies are falling faster than a bald eagle being shot from the air. To prevent economic extinction, President Bush has proposed a $700 billion corporate bailout. My question is where is this money coming from? How do we have this excess that we can give out so graciously? It seems to me that our president is about to rescue Wall Street with $700 billion in Monopoly money.

Americans are confused and scared. We are not being told why our biggest banks are closing their doors. No one has told me where this bailout money is coming from either. Not once has my good friend George Dubya had a fireside chat to explain how he's pulling this white rabbit from the top hat. The American dollar is stretched so thin, I can't imagine being able to pull this magic trick off without ending a few programs. That's why I have come up with a few things that we could do without and would save us billions.

The first thing that should go is the never ending War on Drugs. This declaration of war on the citizens of America has gone on long enough. Over one million people are arrested and jailed for drugs. One quarter of those arrests are for simple marijuana possessions, a "drug" that is less harmful than alcohol. So here is what I propose. Take the $45.5 billion that it costs to keep this war going and eliminate it from the budget completely. End this racially biased "war" to free up a good chunk of change. While we are at it, just to get some extra spending money, legalize marijuana and tax the hell out of it.

Next, we will add another $46.4 billion dollars to help the aching economy by completely dropping Homeland Security.

This waste of money has been busy keeping Americans in a constant state of fear and paranoia since it was established. Under the Homeland Security Act, Bush has stripped Americans of many freedoms to keep us safe. They have wasted our time and money by designing cute color coordinated warning systems and telling us that duct tape will save us from nuclear fallout. They have kept us safe from what?

People are more likely to die crossing the street or driving across town than of terrorist attacks. So far we have gained $100 billion dollars by cutting wasteful programs. How will we find $600 billion extra dollars? Easy! End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. The combined cost yearly for an unjust death machine is $651 billion. We went into this war under the guise of a lie.

No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. There were no ties to terrorists, at least not back then. We should have ended the war and booted Bush from office a long time ago.

That would have freed up enough money over the years to put a substantial dent in the national debt.

With the elimination of these government funded programs, we gain more than $700 billion dollars for the year. That seems plenty to stimulate the economy under the new Bush proposal.

Or better yet, why not distribute it to the people as an apology for the last eight years. I think it's a fair reward to keep us quiet about the mess we will have to clean up once he leaves office.