I heard a story on the radio about the government testing a new unmanned missile/drone that can fly at speeds exceeding 3000 mph and can reach anywhere on the globe in under an hour and they succesfully tested it off of Hawaii. Only cost them $69 Million to do the test. Maybe scrap some of these government funded BS defense programs and allow programs that add to the economy to be left untouched.

Well what exactly don't people understand about "Cut government spending?" Everyone seems to think that only the programs that don't affect them will be cut, and the ones they like are somehow exempt. Cutting taxes, reducing the size of government means everything's up for cuts. Unless your programs can afford expensive lobbyists who can in effect bribe important members of Congress, your pet programs are destined for the chopping block.

Medicare, medicaid, social security, and defense. These are the only real drivers of our budgetary problems. Medicare and medicaid alone are an impending disaster. We could nickle and dime away pretty much everything else, but without reforming the latter entitlement programs, we'll still be in exactly the same mess. Even if all funding for conservation could be eliminated, and all public hunting lands were sold off to raise revenue, it would still be like bailing a sinking ship with a teaspoon compared to the enormous leaks represented by medicare, medicaid, social security, and defense. We need our representatives to get real about the problem. They seem to think that fishing for quarters in the sofa cushions is going to pay the mortgage on a Mcmansion we can't afford! Reform the big entitlements, get defense down to reasonable levels and then let's talk. Until then, this whole process is a sick joke.

Sayfu, you are so right. Obamacare is the big new wing on the Mcmansion we can't afford. I'm 47, and pretty well resigned to working until I drop. I just want to be able to go fishing and hunting when I get the occasional day off. I've already enacted my own drastic austerity measures, and frankly I prefer a simple, spartan life. A lot of luxuries that people demand are just a hollow substitutes for real human experience anyway. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness cannot be realized at the shopping mall; nor can they be mailed to you by Uncle Sam.

You can't reduce the government or fix our economy until you stop saddling the US taxpayer with the costs of the rest of the world's military defense. Medicare may be wasteful but it does have a dedicated revenue stream from our taxes. Same for Social Security (which is about $3Trillion in the black). But fight a couple of pointless wars and spend, for decades on end, ten times as much on global stabilization as every other nation and the only thing you can do is kill the US economy.

If our state and federal government can no longer protect our lands and water due to more and more tax cuts and cuts to conservation funding, the future will be in land trusts (Land Trust Alliance, Nature Conservancy, Freshwater Trust, The Trust for Public Land etc.). I urge everyone to support their local land trusts. We're either going to have to start supporting them or just hand over our beloved lands to developers and industry because our government won't have the necessary funds to protect them. Also of importance, organizations that do water quality testing, stream management etc. Also, volunteering with fish & wildlife, dept of environmental conservation since they don't have the manpower anymore.

Funny how lots of folks won't kick in a dime, but are adamant about keeping a program going. It's the entitlement era in this country. What a lot of these programs depend on is a rich dude kicking in a bunch of his money, or willing a bunch of their money. Rich folks are being attacked as causing the problem. And now our Presidents campaign strategy is to NOT SUPPORT economic policy that needs to get done. He is hoping it will not get done so he can blame congress for not getting it done, and not himself as the problem. The problem is going to get worse without a doubt in my mind.

I have zero sympathy for corporations and the wealthy elite. They've brought this upon themselves and have been anything but patriotic. Like the big-time corporate polluters Koch Brothers Industries and Halliburton doing business with Iranian companies. We continue to let these corporations do whatever they want in pursuit of profits. Tax breaks, lobbying to weaken and dismantle environmental protections, outsourcing etc. Yup, all in the name of "improving the economy" and jobs. What's next- are they going to come out and say child labor laws are bad for the economy? Maybe minimum wage should be set to $2 an hour. F that. Since I'm only one person, I don't have much say in anything. But what I will do this year is buy American-made products whenever I can (especially for the holiday season) and buy local.

And RealGoodMan. There are a million wealthy elite..John Kerry for instance that never had a real job in his life..just married wealth, and made 3 million bucks in the stock market insider trading several years ago. But the left wants to bring up these Koch Bros.??? Every leftist in the country talks about them. What liberal blog sent that message down to you guys? Move.ON.org probably.

Here we go... Right right- so if we call out some corporations on selling out the American public or pushing to turn America's natural landscape into an industrial wasteland for a few quick bucks, we're automatically all "leftists." That's rational. Are only liberals allowed to criticize the Koch Brothers?

Because of partisan corporate apologists like yourself, these corporations aren't held accountable. Criticism of the Koch Brothers and similar companies should be universal for anyone that cares about conservation- it should be coming from all political sides.

I bring up the Koch Brothers because they're one of the largest polluters in this country and they're a major player in the XL pipeline- John Kerry isn't a corporate polluter. I don't know what the hell he has to do with anything in this conversation?

It's because of people like you that the environment and conservation are labeled a "liberal" issue. That hurts EVERYONE. Stop defending them and get real. Not all corporations are bad, there's plenty of responsible ones- but for the ones selling out America, they need a wake up call.