Nearly Half of Every Tax Dollar: Military, National Debt

And thus it has ever been.
I guess this is the price we pay for "democracy".

This is intentional. The The long term policy of the radical republicans, now in control of the government is to starve the government into infectiveness and to create a situation in which large capital is unimpeded by any social control it finds inconvenient or financially constraining.

that's just downright nutty. I say we scrap healthcare and the military, pay off the debt and start all over again

If Bush gets in for another 4 years (God help us) and his deficits soar to the $1.4 trillion expected by many economists, coupled with his endless guerilla war in Iraq, expected to expand to include Iran, Syria, and possibly Venuzuela, watch for the 50% figure to be closer to 65%.

Meanwhile, there are schools in this country who can't afford school books.

This, is George W. Bush's Amerika.

Over the past 25 years there has been a consistent drum beat from the more conservative end of the political spectrum in the US that taxes are evil and much too high. A the same time there has been a shift in how taxes are assessed from large concentrations of capital and the wealthy to the middle class. so "objectively" it looks to most people as if taxes are too high. This creates a broad based middle class movement to lower taxes. The result is the effectiveness of government is undermined.