The problem isn't the quantum of revenue - it"s Congress each year coming up with some new idea to spend money that isn't there.

Most of the programs within the federal budget that don't fall into your Top-Four categories are idyllic versus necessary. It's part of the "I gotta bring home some pork to get reelected" concept. The only way you stop that is to vote for Congressional change with voter-controlled term limits. That will do more to balance the budget than anything.

I respectfully disagree that the federal government has any role in education. There are no federal universities other than the service academies, and the only federal K-12 schools are run by DoD on military installations. Elimination of the Department of Education would not hurt the nation.

If you really want to see where money goes nowhere, take a hard look at the list of independent federal agencies which were created to satisfy some special interest, and really accomplish very little - in other words, no bang for the buck. Just google "Plum Book" and review the list. Why we still need a "Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation, Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, Delta Regional Commission, Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the Vietnam Education Foundation" befuddles me. These are examples of money spent on behalf of special interest only - there are others, but these are classics. For the life of me, why we have a Department of Housing and Urban Development is still a mystery - and it should be iced.

We can probably debate health care forever. I cannot see a national program of any kind because there are so many differences in need due to the diversity of the population across so many regions. There is no question that health care costs rise faster than other areas, but that's mainly due to the costs involved in not only maintaining current capacity, but also the costs in research as well. Nationalizing health care would stifle most research, and such nationalization would have no choice but to cap compensation costs to providers, causing US medical schools to scale back medical education in order to make the cost of such education more affordable so that school loans don't further outstrip physician income.

Health insurance is no different than any other kind ovf insurance - many contributing into a fund whose payoffs are less than payments. If there is "public health insurance" which does not cover the bill because those who use it don't pay enough in premiums, I presume your concept is that you and I open our wallets to pick up the difference. Again, there is no free lunch, so where else does the money come from, if not from you and me (and others who are marginally solvent thanks to continuous devaluation of our currency).

So, has government failed us? I'd say YES in the sense that Congress keeps creating programs so certain congressfolk have legacies. Let the states alone take care of education and health care within their jurisdictions, as they are more adept at taking care of regional populations better than the dreamers within Sodom-on-the-Potomac.

Numbers discussion means nothing until the corporate culture of bring-home-some-pork and take-care-of-the-campaign-contributors is reversed. That change can only happen by en masse replacement of congressiional incumbents.