John Hinderaker: They can’t argue with arithmetic
American voters accepted Obama’s claim that no change is necessary, that $16 trillion of debt is nothing to worry about. In France, voters put socialists into office, vowing not to give an inch on government benefits, ever. In Spain, Greece, and elsewhere around the world, politicians promise their constituents that nothing has to change, more money can be found somewhere. They are all lying.
And of course in the United States, we currently have present and former postal employees on a hunger strike.
John goes on to quote the majority of an article by Janet Daley at the UK Telegraph titled “The truth is that politicians are telling lies: Government is simply unaffordable.”I highly recommend reading both Janet’s article and John’s blog posting. I’ll excerpt a paragraph from each as a teaser. From Janet’s article
Is this the lesson of a year of false economic hopes and cynical political deceptions? That governments will have to accomplish by stealth and betrayed promises what they did not dare to propose when running for office? Here in Britain, the Conservatives make much of their determination to cut welfare, as if out-of-work benefits were the heart of the government spending problem. But in fact, in the medium and long term, it is the state benefits that working people think of as a right that present a far more serious dilemma. The reality is that our ever-rising state pension and entirely free health care system are as unsustainable as social security and Medicare in the US. It is not going to be possible for the NHS, paid for by general taxation, to offer world-class modern medical provision – with its never-ending advances and innovations – into the indefinite future.
And the conclusion from John…
Wishful thinking is a remarkably powerful force. It is beginning to appear that voters will not face reality until they have exhausted all other alternatives, which is to say, until it is too late. Which, if true, implies that a terrible crash is coming, not just in the United States but across the developed world. Demagogues like Barack Obama, Hugo Chavez and Francois Hollande may be able to fool voters, but they can’t fool arithmetic.
Ahh, if it were only so simple. I’ve had conversations with a Boulder liberal who insists that Social Security is solvent and in no financial danger in our lifetimes. This is because Social Security holds US Treasury bonds as collateral for the funds the government has pilfered from this program.
The problem is there IS too much debt, the deficit is too high and the future obligations of Social Security, Medicare, not to mention Obamacare are simply too burdensome. THERE IS NO EASY WAY OUT. Simply cutting the rate of growth of Social Security, Medicare and numerous other government programs elicits howls of unfairness and targeted persecution, not to mention threats of retribution. What happens when we actually CUT absolute spending or, heaven forbid, we eliminate program altogether?
Don’t dare to think “outside the box” as Congressman Paul Ryan tried to do with Medicare. Then you have the pseudo intellectuals at the Denver Post Editorial Board calling you a radical. Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to these idiots that it is going to take radical thinking and courageous leadership to get us out of this mess. Since they only recently figured out that Colorado may face substantial Medicaid exposure thanks to Obamacare, I feel comfortable in calling them psuedo intellectuals. There are many portions of Obamacare that one had to dig to find the information and connect the dots. The potential exposure the States have to the expansion of the Medicaid program is not one of them. Here’s an example from a 2010 Heritage Foundation blog posting, although I’m sure this was pointed out by many blog and publications, probably including the Congressional Budget Office. It could only be ignored either by willful ignorance or plan old stoopidity. How anyone could advise their readers on Obamacare and have ignorance of how the expansion of Medicaid would effect state budgets boggles my mind.
Personally, by the end of President Obama’s term I believe it will be too late for radical thinking and courageous leadership. I hope I’m wrong. Social unrest is not far away
Oh, remind me one more time what Glenn Reynolds says about our fiscal situation in general….
Things that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.
Oh, it sure would be nice if the Senate, under the leadership of Harry Reid, would propose a budget.
