Worth watching...

Finally someone telling it as it really is...and it is not good...



The American people have been lied to since at least the Great Society programs of LBJ.

The mantras of "We can afford to..."; "The richest nation on the planet and we don't have..."; "We need to address the injustices of ..." are what is driving the deficits and the debt to unsustainable levels. Entitlements are the problem: pretending that they may not, can not and shall not be touched is a enduring political myth.

The reason that entitlement programs are called "The Third Rail" of American politics - touch and you die - is that when you look closely at them, the fabric unravels. Social security only works as a pay-as-you-go program when demographics and wage increases support permanent increases; Medicare and Medicaid only work when health care costs do not handily exceed the cost of living increases and only cover those who really cannot pay (as opposed to those who simply don't want to pay); the vast number of subsidies for successful interest groups and their lobbyists are like leeches, living off the life blood and ensuring their own success at the cost of their host.

If entitlements are not addressed now, when there is still a chance to do this with deliberation and with careful review, they will have to be addressed when the full fiscal crisis hits, after interest rates go up and the government has to pay significantly higher interest rates to roll over its debt.

The fiscal irresponsibilities are manifold and cross party lines. The sins of at least three generations of politicians - vote for me and there'll be pork in your district, money for nothing and your kicks for free (deliberate misquote, there) - are coming home to roost: pretending that they are not, that there is no 400lb gorilla in the room, simply pushes the final day of reckoning out to where that gorilla becomes a 25 tons gorilla that fills the room and leaves no other options than dealing with it.

The willful ignorance, the deliberate put-my-fingers-in-my-ears-and-say-la-la-la-la of the Democrat Party reflects the party's virtual total dependence on entitlements. Republicans are better in this aspect - middle-class subsidies such as tax breaks for mortgages have merged into the general landscape, rather than being something that the Republicans depend on to get their votes - but have their own home-made problems and sins of the past.

Unless the problem is dealt with - and as I have said before, only spending cuts will truly address the problem, as raising taxes to actually pay for everything would be onerous and ruinous - then the future of the country is at stake.

To take a slogan, so badly abused by the Democrats: "Do it for the children".