Post by philunderwood on Aug 2, 2011 6:58:21 GMT -5
Progressive economic failure
By Jack Kelly
www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The tsunami is just offshore. The national debt is approaching 100 percent of GDP. Unfunded liabilities in entitlement programs exceed $100 trillion. The U.S. is near a "tipping point" where the interest we must pay on our debt exceeds our rate of economic growth, warns the Bank of International Settlements.
A major economic crisis could begin late next year, thinks the founder of the world's largest hedge fund.
But our political "leaders" are still sunning themselves on the beach. For Democrats, posturing for the next election is more important than solving our fiscal problems. The primary goals of President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. D-Nev, in the debt ceiling negotiations were to hold reductions in spending to an absolute minimum, and to postpone another debate on raising the debt ceiling until after the 2012 elections.
Medicare benefits will have to be slashed 17 percent by 2024 if reforms aren't made, two Medicare trustees told Congress in June. But Democrats would rather have Medicare as an issue than make the changes needed to keep it solvent.
"Former Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi made it clear she was not going to support anything that would touch Medicare or Social Security," ABC's Jonathan Karl reported July 10. "And the reason for that is that Democrats are already campaigning to try to take back the House by saying it's Republicans that want to cut Medicare."
So it's business as usual in Washington D.C. But beyond the beltway, people are worried, and they're getting angry. A Pew poll published July 22 indicates two demographics that have been heavily Democratic for decades -- whites with incomes under $30,000 and people under age 30 -- now lean Republican.
Apparently they prefer having jobs to class warfare. We may be on the verge of the biggest paradigm shift in our politics since the Great Depression.
Progressive ideas have dominated since the Depression. Boiled to its essence, Progressivism is the belief that government knows best. More specifically, that government in the hands of such wise and public spirited people as Progressives imagine themselves to be knows better how to run businesses than do the men and women who own them; knows better what's good for ordinary people than the people do themselves.
The last 80 years provide scant evidence to support that belief. As the government assumed more control over it, our economy grew more slowly. Ordinary Americans were getting richer faster before the arrival of massive government "help." The gap between rich and poor has increased.
The failure of their policies to improve the lives of most Americans didn't trouble Progressives much, because their focus changed. What was good for teacher unions became more important than what was good for students. What was good for public employee unions became more important than whether bureaucracies were serving the public well. To Progressive politicians, the votes of minorities became more important than their economic well being.
As was said of missionaries in Hawaii in the 1890s, the Progressives came to do good...and did very well indeed.
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- this shift in focus, Progressivism has been a huge political success. The political coalition assembled in 1932 by Franklin Roosevelt has dominated our politics since. Progressivism has become the ideology of the Establishment, dominant in academia and journalism, prominent in many corporate boardrooms.
The Democratic formula of "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect" has had a long run. But it couldn't go on forever because, as Margaret Thatcher noted, eventually you run out of other people's money.
"Every vital element of the Democrats' coalition -- unions, government workers, government contractors, 'entitlement' consumers -- requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts," wrote Richard Miniter in Forbes.
When Mr. Obama was elected, journalistic admirers hailed him as the new FDR. But the mountain of debt to which he has added so much precludes a new New Deal.
There is no more money. That Democrats -- despite controlling the White House and the Senate, and having the news media cheering for them -- had to go more than half way to meet Republicans on the debt ceiling is proof of this.
"Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately wants to save," Mr. Miniter said.
By Jack Kelly
www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The tsunami is just offshore. The national debt is approaching 100 percent of GDP. Unfunded liabilities in entitlement programs exceed $100 trillion. The U.S. is near a "tipping point" where the interest we must pay on our debt exceeds our rate of economic growth, warns the Bank of International Settlements.
A major economic crisis could begin late next year, thinks the founder of the world's largest hedge fund.
But our political "leaders" are still sunning themselves on the beach. For Democrats, posturing for the next election is more important than solving our fiscal problems. The primary goals of President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. D-Nev, in the debt ceiling negotiations were to hold reductions in spending to an absolute minimum, and to postpone another debate on raising the debt ceiling until after the 2012 elections.
Medicare benefits will have to be slashed 17 percent by 2024 if reforms aren't made, two Medicare trustees told Congress in June. But Democrats would rather have Medicare as an issue than make the changes needed to keep it solvent.
"Former Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi made it clear she was not going to support anything that would touch Medicare or Social Security," ABC's Jonathan Karl reported July 10. "And the reason for that is that Democrats are already campaigning to try to take back the House by saying it's Republicans that want to cut Medicare."
So it's business as usual in Washington D.C. But beyond the beltway, people are worried, and they're getting angry. A Pew poll published July 22 indicates two demographics that have been heavily Democratic for decades -- whites with incomes under $30,000 and people under age 30 -- now lean Republican.
Apparently they prefer having jobs to class warfare. We may be on the verge of the biggest paradigm shift in our politics since the Great Depression.
Progressive ideas have dominated since the Depression. Boiled to its essence, Progressivism is the belief that government knows best. More specifically, that government in the hands of such wise and public spirited people as Progressives imagine themselves to be knows better how to run businesses than do the men and women who own them; knows better what's good for ordinary people than the people do themselves.
The last 80 years provide scant evidence to support that belief. As the government assumed more control over it, our economy grew more slowly. Ordinary Americans were getting richer faster before the arrival of massive government "help." The gap between rich and poor has increased.
The failure of their policies to improve the lives of most Americans didn't trouble Progressives much, because their focus changed. What was good for teacher unions became more important than what was good for students. What was good for public employee unions became more important than whether bureaucracies were serving the public well. To Progressive politicians, the votes of minorities became more important than their economic well being.
As was said of missionaries in Hawaii in the 1890s, the Progressives came to do good...and did very well indeed.
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- this shift in focus, Progressivism has been a huge political success. The political coalition assembled in 1932 by Franklin Roosevelt has dominated our politics since. Progressivism has become the ideology of the Establishment, dominant in academia and journalism, prominent in many corporate boardrooms.
The Democratic formula of "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect" has had a long run. But it couldn't go on forever because, as Margaret Thatcher noted, eventually you run out of other people's money.
"Every vital element of the Democrats' coalition -- unions, government workers, government contractors, 'entitlement' consumers -- requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts," wrote Richard Miniter in Forbes.
When Mr. Obama was elected, journalistic admirers hailed him as the new FDR. But the mountain of debt to which he has added so much precludes a new New Deal.
There is no more money. That Democrats -- despite controlling the White House and the Senate, and having the news media cheering for them -- had to go more than half way to meet Republicans on the debt ceiling is proof of this.
"Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately wants to save," Mr. Miniter said.