Well, as for the long Democrat’s long game, it’s going to be interesting.
As I’ve said, everyone knows we’re quickly approaching a financial cliff.
“Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That?s it. Every other national priority ? education, transportation, even national security ? will have to be paid for with borrowed money.”
–Obama, George Washington University speech
I’m one Conservative who has questioned our defense spending. Still, any cuts would be largely symbolic. Tax the rich more? Fine, but it won’t make a dent. Again, completely symbolic. Middle income earners will be called to pay their ‘fair’ share, eventually. Yet, it won’t be enough. Not by a long shot. It’s entitlement spending. The Republicans have been successfully vilified on this issue by a party that hasn’t even presented cuts and reforms. People understand something isn’t right. Unfortunately a lot of them believe the problem is fraud and waste. Fraud and waste is a fraction of the problem. Structural problems combined with an aging demographic, a shrinking tax base, and the gutting of the most basic traditional local institutions (the traditional family primarily) is the problem.
So, now that the Democratic party governs–and, I think they will govern for some time–they will most likely be sitting at the head of power when the entittlement state’s accountants, trustees, and actuaries say, “No more. Finished. Done. No more road to kick the can down.” They’ve been warning us for some time now.
That will be an interesting time.
On the tax side, they will have to tell the American people that the rich alone can’t put more skin into the game, instead everyone is going to have to pony up. Middle income earners especially. Tax base will have to expand. There’s going to be a lot people wondering how they got ensnared along with the rich. And still, it won’t be enough. So, on the entitlement side the Democrats will have to turn to the American people and inform them that reforms are going to happen, and that in many cases benefits will be markedly cut/phased out/restricted. That some functions have to go back to the states (who’ll be going bankrupt themselves in a lot of cases), or even privatized.
There isn’t enough wealth in this country to tax. There isn’t enough money to be saved from military spending and ‘waste and fraud.’ Eventually the fix, if there is a fix, will be heavy on spending cuts. And it’s going to be interesting to see the Democrats telling the American people that they will have to do considerably more. That they will need to be more self-reliant, depend more on themselves, and pay considerably more. All the while the government does considerably less with what it offers. And they will have to sell this message to people whose traditional private safety net, the intact family, has been largely abandoned. They will have to sell this message to those folks. Less for more. Good luck.
And they will have to do this because very soon there will be no more road left to kick the can down.
Or, they could just argue that the reason government is failing is because it doesn’t have enough power.
