Cal Thomas praises “a must-read for people who are sick of the way government operates.” It’s Martin L. Gross’ book National Suicide: How Washington Is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z. This isn’t about health care or terrorism. It’s about politicians and the system they have worked up in Washington D.C. that has little to do with serving the public.

The current administration has a projected budget deficit of $9 trillion over ten years. I can only assume that’s because very few congressmen use calculators when considering budget proposals. Do any living congressmen ask about current revenues or unreasonable tax burdens for legitimate reasons, not political points? Do they care about the limitations put on them by the constitution?

Thomas describes some of the problems recorded in National Suicide:

The Alternative Minimum Tax, which he says is “based on an accounting lie,” will cost taxpayers $1 trillion over the next 10 years. America, he writes, spends $700 billion a year on various welfare programs, amounting to $65,000 for each poor family of four, yet we still have the poor with us. Both political parties, Gross charges, secretly encourage illegal immigration (the Democrats for votes, the Republicans for cheap labor) and then reward the immigrants’ children with automatic U.S. citizenship.

Care to guess how many government programs deal with “disappearing rural areas”? 89, 200, 500? It’s much higher than that.

Before the next election, we may want to think through what has brought us to the point of national suicide and ask ourselves who we can trust to serve the country with humility, loving mercy, and acting justly.