Fall of Rome

This is an interesting article which touches on a topic I have thought about quite often in the last 10 years or so:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/80fa0a2c-49ef-11dc-9ffe-0000779fd2ac.html
Basically the article states that the USA should take a look at history because they are showing many parallels to the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire.
It is not that difficult to picture this we are over extending ourselves financially more so than anything else. We cannot allow our capitalist based system to be sucked down a hole into a socialist system with government supplied subsidies for every person in the nation, and all the illegal immigrants in the USA also.
This country was built and prospered only when we relied on ourselves to provide for our own good and the good of our families. We have become a society that cries victim at the drop of a hat and are always crying to the government to help us and dig us out of holes. That is not how it should be!
We will never be a great nation again if we do not start saying no to the welfare and health care systems they want run by the government, already there are Canadians and Europeans who come to America for medical procedures because they would have to wait years to get the same service in their country's socialist health care systems. Yes everyone may have health insurance in those countries but when you have to wait 5 years for a surgery what good is it really doing?
So basically I believe we should throttle back the government spending, the federal government should only be responsible for a strong Department of Defense, border control and a very few other things. Imagine how much they could lower the tax rate or go to a flat rate if our government was not foolishly spending tax dollars on "pork" and other useless projects.