People who wonder what America’s budget problem is ultimately about should look to Europe. In the streets of Dublin, Athens and London, angry citizens are protesting government plans to cut programs and raise taxes. The social contract is being broken. People are furious; they feel betrayed.
Modern democracies have created a new morality. Government benefits, once conferred, cannot be revoked. People expect them and consider them property rights. Just as government cannot randomly confiscate property, it cannot withdraw benefits without violating a moral code. The old-fashioned idea that government policies should serve the “national interest” has given way to inertia and squatters’ rights.
One task of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform ”” co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson ”” was to discredit this self-serving morality. Otherwise, changing the budget will be hard, maybe impossible. If everyone feels morally entitled to existing benefits and tax breaks, public opinion will remain hopelessly muddled: desirous in the abstract of curbing budget deficits but adamant about keeping all of Social Security, Medicare and everything else. Politicians will be scared to make tough decisions for fear of voter reprisals.
Unfortunately, Bowles and Simpson ducked this political challenge….
Given the management practices of the past – it is probably inevitable that there will be some change to social security. That said – productive workers pay into the mandatory program for decades under one set of political terms only to be told that the money they paid is no longer available under those terms. It is appropriate that this becomes a problem for politicians. (Why the terms have yet to be changed for not-yet-voting new workers, I cannot say…)
My primary issue with the discussion is that despite protestation that ‘everything is on the table,’ too much is off the table. Why is there no discussion of eliminating portions of the federal government that provide low value? Why is there no discussion of eliminating the Dep’t of Education, or portions of the Dep’t of Energy, for example?
I protest the tacit assumption that the status quo federal government must continue, and of course that it must continue to be funded. It is as if big government is a moral good.
🙄
[blockquote] it is probably inevitable that there will be some change to social security.[/blockquote]
Safe enough statement. If you look at the balance sheet, and include unfunded Social Security commitments, The US is already bankrupt. This would be true even if congress hadn’t already spent what was in Al Gores “Lock Box”. Add Medicare and the end just comes sooner.
There will be change alright. Our choice is whether we manage it, or it manages us.
Nobody wants the present pain needed to deal with this pile of debt; we all want to kick the can further down the road.
I can remember one politically conservative HS teacher I had in the mid 60’s who said, “The liberals all say the debt doesn’t matter, because we owe it to ourselves.” He said that they were wrong, and it would matter. He has since died, but he knew what he was talking about. Even the liberals are worried now.
As the ABC is finding out, when you keep kicking the can down the road, eventually you will run out of road. Or, as Maggie Thatcher put it, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”
We are at or near that point. Politics will not matter, and there will be no choices left to be made.
The last time we got here, Hitler and Tojo forced the issue. When you don’t deal with crises, crises will deal with you.
Indeed # 4 Maggie Thatcher:
[blockquote]The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. [/blockquote]
Just love her and love seeing this quote. As the headmaster said in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, “It takes more than a University degree to be a teacher, it takes courage, moral courage.” Just such courage is lacking in our political leaders.