Around $60 billion in U.S. tax dollars was wasted through fraud and lack of oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade, according to a report release Wednesday by the Commission on Wartime Contracting.  Contracting waste in Afghanistan alone ranged from 10% to 20%.

And it is by no means just about the money. Sixty-six Americans died in Afghanistan this month. In fact, August 2011 has been the deadliest month to date for U.S. troops fighting in Operation Enduring Freedom.  More than 1,600 have now been lost since the initial engagement nearly ten years ago.

The Taliban has been dealt a major blow and Osama is dead.

Today the federal government is looking at nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities largely revolving around Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The government now issues more IOU’s that it could ever possibly pay.

The classic liberal answer is to soak the rich for more tax revenue. The classic conservative answer is to cut spending. But what if we enacted a simple first-step compromise on entitlements that theoretically combines the two ideologies? I believe we could get the ball rolling on real reform.

Means-tested benefits for Medicare and Social Security would not significantly impact the overall budget, however, it would remove America’s wealthiest from the government dole and begin the process of shifting these programs back to ones of assistance from ones of entitlement.

There’s no doubt we live in a wealthy country, and there should always be safety nets for those Americans who cannot help themselves including children, the disabled, and the elderly. But the taxes required to subsidize all Americans in the liberal utopia of universality are too onerous and would subject us to a managed decline, ultimately ushering in a slow-growth European-like economy and moving us even closer to the tipping point where the majority of Americans become dependent upon government for their subsistence.

A frustration among conservatives is that entitlements have become social welfare for the middle class that consumes a larger share of government spending every year. Means-testing is the first step in refocusing these programs as safety nets protecting actual need, thus releasing them from the liberal grips of universality.

Reading stories of long ago people and places you quickly realize that history really does repeat itself. And, it doesn’t take long reading ancient history to see our current national crises mirrored in the story of the fall of ancient Rome.

During its heyday, Rome was connected by webs of elaborate aqueducts and roads, spectacular infrastructure projects reflecting a creeping trend of government primacy and intervention. Government built hundreds of swimming pools and public baths, fountains and libraries. The government of Rome oversaw a public works extravaganza.

But, with government growth and expansion the Romans set the plans in motion for their eventual downfall. With government spending came interest rates and a devalued currency. A wheat subsidy was created, then wheat was dumped onto the market. Then came a welfare system and food stamps. Price and wage controls were tried, but failed.

Rome’s government brought commerce and industry to its knees with confiscatory taxation and choking regulation.

The Romans didn’t have a Federal Reserve to print their way out of problems, but they increased their money supply by adding copper to the silver in coins. The amount of silver and number of coins varied according to how the state was doing. The value of the denarius sank lower and lower.

Rome, with its economy wrecked and social structure in moral tatters, was eventually invaded by barbarian terrorists who infiltrated the government and sealed its fate of decline and destruction. The question now is, will history repeat itself?

There is little doubt the plans have been set in motion for the decline and destruction of the United States as we know it. Government spending is on an unsustainable trajectory threatening nothing short of fiscal suicide. Will it continue? Will the dollar go the way of the denarius? Will Americans go the way of the Romans? It’s up to us to decide.

When in Rome, what would Paul Ryan do? Watch Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. Watch it, then send it to your friends. And remember, we are already in Rome – let’s not do what the Romans did.

I don’t think it’s too late, but we’re getting dangerously close…