The Dole-ful Warning Deniers
The US has a vast welfare bureaucracy
consisting of many programs. Most of these programs don’t use the word “welfare”
in their names, but that’s what they are. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare,
food stamps, farm subsidies, student aid – all of these are in effect welfare
programs. These programs make up the vast majority of the central government’s
budget. And about 40% of the budget is borrowed, causing the national debt to
increase rapidly.
It was reported recently that
President Obama told Speaker of the House Boehner that the US doesn’t have a
spending problem. So the government’s Expander-in-Chief is a dole-ful warning denier. He denies that
the spending on our welfare state (or “dole” as the Brits would put it) is
unsustainable.
For many years, voices of reason
have warned about the welfare state and its out-of-control spending. The
pyramid schemes of Social Security and Medicare are the worst. See, for
example, these articles by Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/yes-it-is-ponzi-scheme
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/least-ponzi-didnt-force-people-enroll
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/fiscal-facts-life.
Politicians of both major political parties pretend that small tweaks to these
programs can fix them. Some, especially on the left, keep up the mantra of “tax
the rich”. But even taxing the rich into poverty (and killing the economy as a
side effect) can’t fix the mathematical impossibility of paying ever-increasing
numbers of dole recipients.
President Obama is just the
latest in a long line of big spenders and big borrowers. FDR, of course,
created Social Security, LBJ gave us Medicare, and George W. Bush added
Medicare Part D. Many other dole-ful programs were also created during other
administrations. And all of these programs have worked exactly as designed –
they have bought votes and increased the scope of government. But sooner or
later, the Titanic of state will hit the iceberg of entitlement debt. If the
dole-ful warning deniers keep rearranging the deck chairs with tweaks and taxes
instead of real reform and drastic reductions in spending, we’re sunk.
Labels: denier, government spending, national debt, welfare
posted by Dick T. @ 9:55 AM
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