In his AMA presentation, President Obama stated that unless we rein in health care costs, presumably through the adoption of his proposed massive spending program, the U.S. government could go the way of GM.

Is he kidding? We are already fiscally beyond the pale, and to my knowledge no nation has ever spent its way into prosperity.

Richard Fisher, the Dallas Federal Reserve Governor, reported that the government's unfunded liabilities, Social Security ($14 trillion) and Medicare, Parts A, B and D ($85.6 trillion) round to $100 trillion. To gain perspective in financial terms on what 1 followed by 14 zeros is, consider the following. If you string $100 bills end-to-end, $100 trillion worth would extend from earth to the sun, approximately 99 million miles.

The only reason our government didn't precede GM, AIG, the banks, etc. to the financial scrap heap is because it has a printing press. Others have now been given access to the government's press in the form of massive bailouts.

How did we get to this point? Plain and simple symbiotic greed! For years we have elected self-serving individuals to the executive and legislative branches of government. Once elected, these officials pander to their constituents by handing out goodies, particularly in the form of entitlements, as the sure way to remain in power.

Even today, faced with our present (recession) and future dire fiscal liabilities, we are laying the groundwork to hand out more tickets to the punch bowl. Major proposed handouts include universal health care and free college educations. (Illegals also are urged to belly up.) Guess that thing about "no free lunches" doesn't apply in an America under Comrades Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Michael J. Keogh

Pinehurst