I am shocked  at you John...   I have watched your show  for years and have, in the past , enjoyed your point of view with just about everything you've voiced your opinon on.   But watching you just now on "The View"  I was totally shocked and disappointed about  your thoughts about elderly care,  how can you voice an opinion on a subject that you obviously have NO REAL  clue about?  I'm sure you feel secure about your up coming retirement from the public eye having made an income befitting someone in your position!   Even the ladies on the View were more aware that there are millions of individuals out there that draw in the income that they make and that there a very few out here that do.  You NEED to get out and find out what life is really like for folks who live on a fixed income of approximately  $500. a month...  this includes, rent, utilities, medications,  gas in their cars, and unbelievably food.  For the past 20 years my mother has had to survive on this amount of assistance  in the form of  retirement and food stamps and for the past 20 years my brother and I have tried to help her out as much as possible with what we could give her, fifty dollars here, pay a bill there.....  but as much as we would have like to done more we didn't have any more to help with.   Here's the scoop ....  ministers don't make a lot of money (at least honest ones don't)  and raising a family and paying the bills means even if you believe in God you may not have a lot to put away at the end of the month.  That was my brother's family,  for me, I have worked all my life, and I have yet to break  $22,000. in any given year.....my husband has worked for the past 30 years, a privately owned railroad construction company, a decent job, but after twenty years we found out there was a problem with his retirement due to federal regulations and other red tape.  He is now 63 and any thought of retirement is looking pretty slim, especially now with the economy being so bad... even a part time job closer to home has been difficult finding.  So he works away from home living out of a suitcase most of the time...which also includes living in a 23 year old van because the company will not pay perdieum or provide a motel room for him to stay in.    So basically it boils down to a 63 year old guy, living in a 23 year old van, trying to save what would boil down to half of his pay so that we might be able to pay the mortgage each month and put some food on the table.   We've taken in our youngest with her husband and our grandchild so that they don't have to live on the street, we grow what we can in our own back yard, and we've even taken to raising chickens so we can have eggs as well.  We are not survivelists in the sense that we're stock piling food and building our own form of pertection to keep out the "others"  we're just trying to survive on what we can provide for ourselves out of neccessity.... the raising cost of living.      My brother-in-law is another example... 30 years working for GM, what would you like to say to him?  Where is his retirement now?  What would you have him do at the age of 65?  Maybe I should mention that both these men have had a HARD life doing a lot of physical hard labor over their lives.... my husband spent the past thirty years swinging a spike hammer driving spikes,  pry bars lifting out spikes, rail and ties and his shoulders, knees and wrists can hardly move any more.   No steriods  caused these problems and no extravagent salary was offered to compensate for his future aches and pains.  My brother-in-law  lives with a more metal in his spine then in a Erecter set.... and now with his retirement gone what should he expect for having worked hard all of his life and believing that he could retire and relax after 40 years?  If you're not busy some time perhaps you should take a page from the Dicovery channel's  Mike Rowe's  Dirty Jobs....  now there's a reason that show does so well.  Yes we all know that at the end of the show Mike and his crew go home and wait for that paycheck that we'd all like to see once in a while... but what about the guys he has just left to clean up or do the job that nobody else wants to do?   What about the farmers who barely just sqeak by trying to put food on this country's tables?  What about the man who enlists in the military, goes off to war, comes home and gets out before his 20 years.... there's no retirement there, and a minimal amount of assistance through the VA.    Not everyone out here can "PUT" away something from their paychecks for that raining day.... because there simply isn't enough to pay the bills from month to month left to put away for the future..     You feel that we should spend less on the elderly because some rich retireies  get benefits like Viagra?   Spend more money on kids who feel that we owe them everything on a silver plater anyway?  Give ME A BREAK!!!  I live in a college town, I know the mentality of these kids.... they only want to work when they feel like it, when it's convienent for them, no holidays, no long weekends, and God forbid if there's a party coming up they want to attend.    If you don't pat them on the head each and everytime they do their job they're unhappy cause it's all about them.  Not that they get a paycheck for the job that they're suppose to be doing... that doesn't really count... and you know why?  cause MOM AND DAD have their backs.   This is just something to get them some money to spend without the folks knowing what they're really spending their time doing,... partying.  Cause when they get their degree they're going to get the job of their dreams and make the REAL money.... oh yeah.... they're going to be getting all those jobs like you have.... working on television, becoming the next Michael Jordan, all those jobs that pay so well.... they're all over the place just waiting for all us slackers who haven't prepared for the future to come and get since now we no longer will be getting any assistance at retirement.     Who would have thought that we were missing our chance to make all that money and voice our opinion about those hard working folks who keep this country so the lucky few could look down their noses and scold the rest of us about how irresponsible we were.