US Government Shutdown

As I sit here on day 11 of this damn shutdown, required to be at work, but not getting paid, I wonder how we’ve gotten to this point. Sorry for this rant
Our government has gotten SO big and bloated that the American public’s tax burden can’t even pay for what the government is spending. Do you realize that $.40 of every dollar the government spends has to be borrowed because we are THAT stupid! We are now almost $ 17 trillion in debt. Let me repeat that… I said $ 17 TRILLION with a «T». Do you realize that for someone who is 34 years old we would have to run a $ 500 BILLION budget surplus for the number of years you’ve been alive JUST TO GET BACK TO EVEN!!! Do you realize that there have only been 3 years in our history that we’ve run a budget surplus of over $ 100 Billion?
Yet we keep voting people into office that want to keep spending and increasing the size of our government… And here I sit at work (at lunch — so don’t give me crap about doing this during work hours) not getting paid. Maybe I can sell «Steve Bonds» and tell my mortgage company that the money is coming… I swear, it’s coming, but I’m just waiting on the a-​holes in DC to come to an agreement… THEN I can pay you, but until then buy this bond and I’ll owe you the money.
So, No, I don’t like the shutdown, I don’t like how our government has grown, I don’t like that we’ve sent millions of manufacturing jobs overseas because it’s cheaper (I can rant on that too, but I’ll hold back), I don’t like how we’re told half-​truths by our elected officials and the media, and I don’t like that I’ll probably be sitting around for at least another two weeks working without pay. It doesn’t matter that I might get paid at some point down the road, because I’m NOT getting paid now… when my bills are due.
Can we solve this? There’s plenty to cut-​but here’s the problem:
The Federal government is overloaded with departments, divisions, bureaus, programs, agencies, and units that the US government has never had any business being in the business of running. Department of Education? Why? TSA? Why? Farm subsidies? Why? Oil subsidies? Why? Grant programs to Green Energy programs? Why?
SO let’s say you have 1 million people working for the USG that fit into the above categories-​and that includes all the shitbirds who are crappy employees that should be culled from the herd as well. If the USG was to get rid of all these agencies and employees you now have 1 million people out of work… with no one set up to hire them. They’ll never do that. We don’t need TSA-​privatize it and keep a skeleton crew on board to do nothing but security inspections and stings-​in fact wrap them into the FBI or another agency so you can do away with it completely. We don’t need the Department of Education-​let the states and local school boards take care of it and if they start fudging numbers and kids fail out of college then parents will actually have to get involved in their kids’ education. Go to a Flat or Fair Tax and do away with 85% of all IRS employees. Clear out the EPA except for inspectors, write very specific laws that lay out HARSH punishments and fines for polluting and simply ENFORCE them. FEMA? They gotta go-​let States take care of their own and simply have an agency that will funnel emergency funds to the governors of hard hit natural disaster areas — then let the National Guard take care of assisting the citizens in need. Do we need 17 agencies in the intelligence community? How about NO. Homeland Security? Health and Human Services? Agriculture? National Endowment for the Arts? You like art. you like a specific artist? YOU hire him and pay his way.
I can go on and on. Look, I’m no Ron Paul, I think there ARE things that the government SHOULD spend money on-​even research money on, but we’re WAY past the time of being able to afford what we do. SO much of what the USG does can be privatized, done cheaper, and done better because the people working will have an incentive that federal employees don’t have… they can be EASILY fired. The problem is that we now live in a welfare state where the USG has decided it knows best. I’m disgusted with the whole lot of them…
Hey, want to save even MORE $$? Stop sending money to the UN and countries all over the world that don’t give a crap about us and who see us as nothing more than a source of money. When the UN begins to send peacekeeping troops to places like Rwanda that are allowed to actually prevent genocide by killing the scumbags who are conducting the genocide… THEN we can start paying them again. Until then, take your resolutions and your awards and shove ‘em straight up your a$$…
I’ll now step off my soapbox
«No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!»
Ronald Reagan