Oh captain, my captain, please stop wasting our provisions on yourself

Dear President George W. Bush,

You've raised a lot of money for your re-election campaign. Kudos to you for your excellent fundraising skills. Since you've raised more money than any candidate in history, can I ask a small favor? Please use that money, instead of wasting my hard-earned tax dollars to promote your re-election.

This week you proposed giving $1.5 billion (holy freakin' crap!) to promote marriage in America. This pro-marriage plan is utterly useless, and is simply for show. You suggested it so you could calm the nerves of the ultra conservatives who are upset about gay marriage being legalized in Massachusetts, and to show yourself as a family-oriented man.

This is a pretty lame re-election ploy at best. Don't get me wrong, I'm used to being screwed out of tax dollars by politicians looking for re-election. Every president in office has done it, but our previous presidents had something that you lacked with this proposal: tact. If you want to rip me off, you have to earn it through clever methods. Try wasting small amounts of taxpayer money on extremely vague causes that the press will never notice, instead of some big plan that everyone and their blind, retarded grandfather can see is pointless.

Divorce is a fact of life, and as society gets more complex and diversified, divorce rates will probably increase. Our society has many benefits, but it also has a few drawbacks. More divorces is one of those drawbacks. If years of therapy and marriage counseling haven't solved problems for struggling couples, I doubt giving free classes on "interpersonal skills" is going to help. Let people deal with their mistakes, and don't waste taxpayer money elongating the misery for them. Good marriages and families can't be mandated.

If you want to be seen as a family-oriented man, give that $1.5 billion (holy freakin' crap!) directly to schools. That would be a really appropriate gesture, since your tax cuts have caused most schools in America to stop supporting after-school programs, full-day kindergarten, field trips, hands-on learning activities, and basic necessities like textbooks. Schools could bring back some of those things with a little extra money.

Now that we have that problem solved, let's talk about the wasteful spending and shameless political promotion in your space initiative. Recently, you announced plans to spend an extra billion dollars this year (holy freakin' crap!) in preparation for a manned trip to the moon in 2015. Eventually, you'd also like to send a man to Mars. In order for this proposal to be carried through, it would require at least a billion dollars yearly (holy freakin' crap!), and tens to hundreds of billions when the missions are launched. So since the launched is planned for 11 years from now, it will cost $11 billion total beforehand, plus tens to hundreds of billions more to carry it out. Our deficit is $500 billion. Let's put the money towards that.

While I agree that a manned trip to the moon, and possibly Mars, would certainly make space exploration exciting again . . . for a few months . . . the cost makes it a boneheaded idea. Sure, manned space exploration is flashy and exciting . . . for a few months . . . but unmanned vessels get there faster, cost a lot less money, and do the job better. But don't ask me, ask any astronomer, physicist, or mathematician. They're the experts, not us. As James Van Allen - the physics professor who discovered the Van Allen Belts surrounding the Earth - said recently, manned spaceflight is "at best high adventure for a few people."

Why raise our deficit by tens to hundreds of billions with manned space missions, when the entire scientific community says they're unnecessary? Because we can? Because it's exciting? I don't make very much money, but should I go buy a $50,000 Lexus because it's exciting? I think not. You know what's exciting to me? The day when the deficit is paid off, and I can rest easy at night knowing I'll be able to collect social security when I'm old.

On a side note, Mr. President, I'm also a bit worried about this fixation you have with completing all your father's goals. Your father, George H. Bush, suggested a plan in 1989 to put a man on Mars, and his idea was shot down. When your dad lost his re-election bid, one of his downfalls was the accusation that he didn't have "a large enough vision for the future". Your plan includes a lot of talk about following through with a vision, and looking ahead to the broader picture in our future. I wish we could pass this off as a coincidence, but I don't think we can.

To make a long story short, I think every president deserves the chance to support a few wasteful projects for vanity purposes. But your choices cross the line. These pro-marriage and space exploration plans are expensive and a perfect example of careless spending, and it shocks me that you don't care about money management, in a time when our country needs money management most.

If there's one thing I remember from the presidential debates back in 2000, it was the question on paying down the deficit. Gore had a detailed plan to pay it off, and promised to follow through with it. You, Mr. President, said you were also worried about the deficit, and promised you would do everything you could to pay it off.

Where has that promise gone?

Sincerely,
Paul Ryan

Hey readers: If anyone knows what the phrase "Oh captain, my captain" is in reference to, you get . . . well, the satisfaction of knowing about literature.

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