How to Ruin the United States of America

The authors take an honest and sometimes humorous, no punches pulled, look at many of the major issues and problems facing the United States of America. A great read! I didn't want to put this one down. If we can only encourage Americans and our leaders to use the common sense needed to strengthen our country and unite us once again. Otherwise, some of the scary scenarios in this book could soon be our reality and then, if it isn't already, it will be too late.

I hope you take the time to read this terrific book. It won't take very long to read, but I hope you ponder its meaning for a long time to come. In a way it is one of those tests that reveals who you are by your responses to what it says. I found myself deeply in sympathy with what Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth say in these pages and I think that most people who truly love America for its history, traditions, and potential will love this book. Those who see only America's flaws and judge it a failed nation will be on the other side of things. I think it is helpful to know who stands where and why. The book has six short chapters. Ben Stein's other "How to Ruin" books have many more chapters that range from a paragraph or two to a page or two, but these chapters are 20 to 30 pages each. The authors provide a mix of history, stories, and personal analysis of each topic. The first chapter shows how banishing God from Public Life is against our long held traditions and how this modern innovation has turned the Founders' intentions on their head. It has not been a matter of progress, but a process of corruption. Our society has become not only coarser and crueler, it has taken on practices as normal that have been seen by humanity as abominations for thousands of years. The second chapter shows how the mis-education of our youth serves one political agenda and it is not the one that reveres our founding and the original intent of our Declaration and Constitution. When the authors show you the way certain views have turned every subject into a nail for its monomaniacal hammer I hope you get energized to get involved and help America reject the rot of the past several decades. Chapter three shows us the debasement of American culture. Stein and DeMuth show surveys that demonstrate the majority of us understand that things have gotten worse. They also compare literature and movies from early in the 20th Century to recent decades. The review of television, music, and our obsession with celebrity for celebrity's sake is truly disheartening. Their discussion of the weakening of our military in chapter four is more important that you might at first realize. Despite the costliness of the War on Terror, we are still not spending enough to replace the equipment being used or enough of our GDP to keep our military as strong as we need it to be to face the looming threats. We need more men and women in the military who need to be paid and cared for better. We need more ships, planes, tanks, and other equipment. And we all need to show more public gratitude to the men and women of our armed forces regardless of how you feel about the tasks they do on our behalf. Chapter five discusses the immigration problem in a very helpful and informative way. Stein and DeMuth show how the current waves of legal and illegal immigration began in 1965 when the quotas put in place in 1924 were repealed. They assign the blame to Ted Kennedy and that is

In "How to Ruin the United States" I expected to see the standard conservative line, given Stein's conservative background. Instead, I was pleased to instead find thoughtful comments, documented with a few facts, as appropriate. I especially liked his sections on "Voodoo Economics" and immigration. Stein believes our government is engaged in economic malpractice by running large deficits during times of prosperity, pushing the Kool-Aid of supply-side economics that says cutting taxes gives us something for nothing, and persecuting the oil industry - vital to our survival. Stein reports that the discounted present value of unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security total $88.2 trillion as of 2007 - about $290,000 per citizen, and 6X our annual GDP. He also asserts that the 2006 drug benefit costs are even larger, though I'm not certain I'm on board with that conclusion. Milton Friedman attributed about 60% of the increase in health care costs to U.S. involvement in Medicare and Medicaid; the proportion of government spending on health care has risen from 1/8 in 1919 to about one-half in 1997. Turning to our ballooning federal deficits, Stein attributes them largely to Arthur Laffer's theory - introduced without benefit of validity during Reagan's terms. Supposedly, people would work harder if they were taxed less, resulting in an overall increase in collected taxes. Reality, however, is that the number of hours worked/week has barely moved since Bush's tax cuts, and are considerably less than 1959 when the top bracket was nearly 80%. Further, overall labor-forced participation has hardly changed since Bush's cuts. Almost $1 trillion in personal income taxes was collected in 2000, prior to the cuts; this dropped to $794 billion in 2003, and only returned to $1 trillion in 2006. Meanwhile, our national debt had gone up over $2 trillion. (Stein does concede that corporate profits did increase - on the other hand, what else could they do when tax expenses were decreased?) Stein is also concerned about increasing income inequality, seeing it as a moral issue. As for those accusing oil companies of price-fixing, Stein easily dismisses their conspiracy theories with long-term data showing inflation-adjusted oil prices (until recently) lower than decades prior. Stein also considered immigration (especially illegal) to be an important topic. He traces that problem's start to legislation passed by Sen. Kennedy in 1965, along with subsequent amnesty etc. programs. Anchor babies, relatives, sham marriages, etc. acerbate the problem, while their numbers and failure to assimilate clearly undermines American culture. Interesting, and refreshing!

This book should be required reading for Americans who do not think ours is a great country. Those who do not believe that we are surrounded by enemies should read this book. Those who criticize and mock our core values should examine the book. Stein and DeMuth outline the basic values on which our country was built: a belief in God, a belief in ethical behavior, a belief in freedom, and a willingness to fight to defend our way of life. The authors point out how a liberal media and a liberal academe have helped create a moralless community of lazy complainers in our country. If you're the sort who snickers at phrases like "My country right or wrong" you would not enjoy this book. The authors offer great insight about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the threats from Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. They point out the ill effects of an open-borders immigration policy. They assert that a crisis looms because of the unfunded demands of Social Security and Medicare combined with a cut-taxes-but-spend-anyway government, all riding on a stupendous national debt. It's a great little book.

A deep insight into the state of our country, what it was built on, and how far we've strayed from the ideals of our founders. The authors have addressed serious problems that our country is facing in a truly comical, yet straightforward fashion. A definite must-read for everybody before casting your presidential vote.