I do so love it when I’m no longer out on the rhetorical cliff’s edge alone, my hairy Hobbity feet holding precariously to a loose, gravelly lip …
Would the author of the New Deal be pleased with the state of Social Security 80 years later? Did President Johnson, when approving of the Medicare amendment in 1965, know of the volatility of such a program and the government dependency it would create?
While Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Johnson did what they thought best for the nation at the time, they must have known that to inject even a little government spending into peoples’ personal lives would only lead to more spending and a new kind of government dependency.
And that is exactly what has happened. Almost 60 percent of all federal spending is now dedicated to so-called “mandatory” spending, which includes entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. In 1960, entitlement payments accounted for well under a third of the federal government’s total outlays, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Because this government largesse can no longer be afforded, entitlement programs are in trouble. Projections have shown that if not dealt with Medicare as we know it might not be around in the next decade, with the trust fund set to run out in 2024.
Both sides of the political aisle see fit to fund a federal health insurance program for America’s seniors, and both sides champion a need for some kind of reform to save it.
Though they may take a different approach to addressing this program, they do agree with the basic premise that this and other entitlement programs are necessary and should be saved — and that is a problem.
During the Republican National Convention both Rep. Paul Ryan and presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke personally of the need to reform Medicare and the importance of that program.
However, their eagerness to reform this program is in stark contrast to their predecessors in Congress in 1965. Republicans didn’t support Medicare in Johnson’s era fearing it was a step closer to socialism.
It now seems the need to reform this massive government-spending program is at the heart of the Republican platform.
How do Republicans champion a platform of limited government and in the same breath call for tinkering with a huge Big Government program? If limited government does indeed mean less government involvement in peoples’ lives, wouldn’t Republicans be acting on ways to wean the American people off programs like Medicare?
When two political parties are admitting to a need for a government-run program and are only battling on ways to reform it, one of those parties is going to become obsolete. Why do voters need two political parties with little difference between them — the party that champions Big Government and the party that wants to readjust and reform Big Government? That’s not going to sell well.
Republicans can’t take this election lightly. If preaching from a true platform of limited government, they’ve got to do more than just reform programs.
If Romney becomes the next president and the state of the economy doesn’t change and government spending doesn’t decrease, it could very well be the last time Republicans take a turn in the majority. Another political party will rise that is in opposition to the status quo and the Republican Party could have a very similar history to that of the Whig Party, which it replaced.
Glad to see at least a few alarm clocks are still working. In fact, throw in a dick joke or two and maybe some finely-tuned sarcasm, and this piece may well have ended thusly:
outlaw.
Who in the hell is this woman? Doesn’t she understand that there’s an election to win and a government full of programs popular with wymyn and oldsters and chillens and all the other special pleaders whom the moderates and the independents and the NYT all love that needs to be run? Because Those are the people we need to placate and win over and her silly little concerns about so-called principle don’t matter to them. There’s a govnerment to run, and all the moderates and independents and NYT care about is who’s going to run it for them better. Does she want the Democrats running it, or us?
Get her blacklisted now!
it would be awesome if the Republican party went bust. I hope I live to see it.
There is only one party of Big Government. What we’re deciding between are its two wings: the one that accuses the other of wanting to push Grandma off a cliff, or the one that accuses the other of wanting to stick generations yet unborn with the tab for our goodies today.
Is there going to be any political site on the internet besides this one that won’t have to go through the “Five Stages of Acceptance” when Romney and team blow it?
Crystal ball:
1. “You guys, he needs more time!”
2. “What the hell is he doing all this tinkering for!!!”
3. “You guys, we just have to elect some more people to Congress, then that’ll show we’re serious.”
4. “I can’t be on the net today, guys.”
5. “2016 is the most important election ever!”
It’s not so much that this will happen that gets me, but that it’s so frustratingly predictable.
If Romney blows it, 2016 won’t be worth a tinker’s damn.
That was my view of when Romney wins and spends his time reaching across the aisle. Though I can see how it looks like a crazy optimistic view of another four years of Obama.
I don’t really have enough of a crystal ball for Obama, since that runs such a high risk of actually destroying America.
Uh…
1. “How could people possibly! No budget! 16 trillion! All blaming! What!!!”
2. “We’ve got to stop all these Federal Mandates! Shut the system down!”
3. “Shut only half the system down, we’ll get by!”
4. “I can’t believe this is what America has become.”
5. “Screw this, I’m going Galt/keeping my head down forever.”
Hmm. Don’t know. It’s a more interesting/terrifying question. Romney is four more years of frustration. Obama is a mind trip into complete chaos.
The roofers have caused our teevee satellite to go kaput. No DNC or football until Saturday.
Sign from God? I’ll take it as one.
But they are! By joining the Democrats in spending like drunken sailors(tm), they’re hastening the day when we will be weaned off all these government programs. Of course when their whole fiscal house of cards comes crashing down we’ll go from sucking hind teat to sucking wind in no time flat, but we will be weaned, so what’s your complaint? Forward!
OPERATION: WHIG starts to pick up steam!
Rhetorically, Rast certainly has a point, and of course it’s one we’ve been hearing here for years. But allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
I think it’s fair to assert – and I assert only because I’m too lazy at the moment to go searching for evidence, though I believe it exists – that if you asked Paul Ryan (though Mitt Romney not necessarily, but possibly him as well) what is his ultimate vision for Medicare / Social Security / Government Entitlements in general, you’d get an answer much in line with what we espouse here at pw. That is, something along the lines of “government-sponsored safety net only for the “severely” indigent, everyone else pays their own way and buys catastrophic Major Medical” etc.
Now, maybe he sees it as something 10 years down the road, maybe 20, maybe even 50. But that is the endgame. That is the vision. That is the goal.
The question is, what is the best way to reach the goal? Ryan’s plan suggests that he views a “long game” approach as the one that has the best chance of succeeding, due to its maintenance of some measure of equilibrium (“not throwing gramma off the cliff”).
For the sake of contrast, we’ve been treated over the last few years to an object lesson in the opposite approach. The Democrats have a vision of single-payer. The Obamareich postulated that the way to get to that vision is through a single, major, upheaval-producing step halfway to the goal. This approach has aroused such anger and chaos amongst the public that what little chance it has of remaining on the books is due solely to the
hallelujah chorusmainstream media’s brown-nosing (DENOUNCED!).The GOP doesn’t have a sycophantic mass media tongue-bathing it, and Ryan knows this, so imagine the utter impossibility of success of the giant-steps approach. The GOP wants to last longer than one term in the Oval Office this time. There are enough who recognize that baby steps – while keeping eyes on the prize – may have the best chance of success in reaching the ultimate goal. Might it not be worthwhile to give the benefit of the doubt? At least until there exists sufficient evidence to the contrary?
Now, as I said, this is all a thought experiment. It could be that there already is sufficient evidence to call into question my assertion. If so I will recant or at least reconsider. But I wonder if we do ourselves a disservice in demanding results NOW! It took 50 years for the communists’ work to pay off. We can’t expect to turn it around on a dime.
I tend to agree with you, Yackums. I think the point from others might be that we don’t have the time to wait to do it gradually, but I don’t know that for sure.
“The question is, what is the best way to reach the goal?”
I can’t quibble that this isn’t the goal of Ryan’s project, at least not without a great deal of preparation (talking to Ryan, say).
But I think we should be careful whether we assent to the proposition that his goal, or this goal as put, is commensurate with the proper object of politics or government as our political founding would have that object.
So where might we look for an articulation of that object, the end, the telos or “that for the sake of which” Governments are founded? For we would hardly want to violate the primary aim of government for the sake of a decidedly secondary and possibly incompatible purpose, would we? Not to say this question whether there is a conflict is decided as yet, but to say that it may possibly be a conflict (innocently introduced even!) and that we should look to see.
How about in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Chapter IX: “Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.”, smack dab in the center of that Treatise? It’s as good a place to start as any, I think. (And bonus! It isn’t too long.)
If you want a politician who’ll stand up and pronounce, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” remember this too: Churchill only said that after he was securely installed at #10 Downing as Prime Minister. Not before.
Of course, you’ll also have to get busy edumacating the more-often-than-not mouth breathing American voters (half of whom have IQs below 100 – depressing, huh?) that the situation in America today is as bleak as it was in England during May, 1940. Good luck with that as long as most of your neighbors think there’s lots of other people’s livelihoods available to feed to the alligator.