O Mike, by the way. It's Mr. Bush and 12 years of a Republican Congress's mess that Mr. Obama must clean up---trillions in debt run up because of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and two totally unnecessary wars--prosecuted but not funded. Mr. Bush bailed out the criminals he enabled to take this country down economically. Other presidents have bailed out corporations too. Corporations "too big to fail", or how about "If it's good for GM it's good for the country". The propaganda of the right is that Capitalism is the salvation of this country--and if they need our tax dollars to survive, is that really capitalism or something else?. So you support Mr. Bush's bailouts of big business but not Mr. Obama's bailouts for the rest of us? Who is not looking at who his Masters are and how they have turned everything upsidedown in THEIR favor!

Mike, we don't have a Democracy. I'm not sure we ever did have one. What we have and have had since the British took over our banking system after the war of 1812, is a Corporatocracy. We don't work for this mythical government of which Mr. Armey speaks but we work for our Corporate Masters who speak through the Congress they allow us to believe we elect,. The status quo is not how much debt we have or even owe, it's to whom it is owed. The last 12 years made readily apparent how much our rights matter to them. But the steps were taken with careful deliberateness. First Corporations were declared to be "individuals" with all the the rights of individuals under the Constitution. Lobbying was made legal so they could peddle their influence with impunity and now the Supreme Court openly guaranteed Coporations the right to support any candidate for any government office with the full weight of their financial ability. So I guess we see things in a similar way even thought your description is slightly different than mine. This country does not belong to the people, and I'm no longer sure that it was ever intended to belong to the people---except the select few who give the rest of us our marching orders. (no pun intended since the Military Industrial Complex is eating up everthing we can shovel into it's pie hole). What do we do now when they are so adept at lying that most people don't even ask questions. I'm with George Carlin who famously said, "That's why they call it the American dream. You have to be asleep to believe it!"

This man is talking about the government as if it were something else, an entity that must be dealt with, when the Constitution of this country makes it quite clear that "we the people" are the government. Taxes come from us because there are things that we all have and need in common that as individuals we could not provide for ourselves. How would we pay for things like infrastructure, fire, police and military, and all the other things we use our tax dollars to provide. Or maybe we should pay them with a credit card when we need help? The government ISN"T the problem because WE ARE the government. The problem is arrogant individuals who sometimes get elected to represent us and believe they should tell us rather than having us tell them what is good for US. Just like Mr. Armey who forgets that there would be no Army without taxes, but wait!The DOD already gets almost half of the national budget---why doesn't he talk about cutting that in half, then maybe we wouldn't be paying so much in taxes. Or maybe we should be requiring more of the top 10% of us who make 90% our combined incomes but pay less tax than any of us. Does he even know that the original intent of the "income" tax was not to tax wages (as it is now) but to tax the unearned income of the wealthy? How about we go back to that so we can keep the services they need as much as we do?