Butter, Guns, and the Old Lady

This morning I made the old lady some buttermilk pancakes filled with carob powder. She has a massive sweet tooth and I would never tell her it was not chocolate. As she piled on the butter, about 1/4 of a country crock's worth, I noticed something - our country cares a lot more about butter than guns as it gets older.

What do I mean?

Chapter One Economics deals with society's choice to make either Butter or Guns. At equilibrium, as the very simple model goes, a society will choose so many guns and so much butter given their resources and utility. Their choice puts them at the maximum point they can achieve on their production possibilities frontier given their endowments and desires. In this hypothetical model, only two goods are produced. (Arguably, you can say this is a metaphor for deciding between defense and social programs.) So, what's my point?

We have a society of graying citizens that care more about eating what they want rather than what they should. As the House passed a sweeping remake of the Healthcare system last night, they forgot one thing: individual responsibility. Over the last month, I have heard at least a half of a dozen of retired people say, "I don't care what I eat anymore." You know why? Because I am paying for it, they aren't. Their pitiful contribution to medicare will long be outspent by what they use post-65 - and what do they care - they aren't paying for it.

I completely disagree with maintaining the status quo in Healthcare as the Republicans suggest. People *need* to be able to buy into affordable insurance. But people shouldn't be allowed to do what they *want* when it comes to their health decisions without paying for those poor decisions.

So what about guns? I think it's pitiful that we can produce all the social programs in the world but not arm and protect our soldiers on the field. We have soldiers without bullet proof vests fighting a war. We, as a nation, are deciding to maintain our unhealthy lifestyles, addiction to social programs, and continuously are looking for ways not to pay for the services we use. We are doing this at the expense of our national security. We are choosing butter over guns.

Now, if this is the path we want to take - to fatten up our citizens, to make sure no one is paying for what they are using, and maintaining the status quo, so be it. But we should give up our place as a superpower, and more importantly, we shouldn't be dabbling in the business of other countries if we aren't willing to take responsibility for our actions.

Next time you eat that stick of butter just think about how your healthcare costs are sucking dollars away from national security. Now if that's not domestic terrorism, I don't know what is!