Robert, we can't even get the special interests--on ALL sides--to agree on cutting the rate of growth, never mind actual cuts. There is not one single government program that doesn't have its fervent defenders who insist that utter disaster would befall if they didn't get all the money they needed. Ironically, this is true of programs that didn't even exist when I was growing up, and oddly, the Union stood intact.
We have a government whose primary function today is to buy votes with money from the Treasury. This system, not surprisingly, selects for leadership that tells us we can have all the goodies we want, and eliminates leadership that tells us we're going to have to cut back.
Entitlements are the killer. Most of our spending falls into this category. Unless that fact is finally faced, nothing else will do much good.
· Unless Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are reformed, lawmakers face three options:
A) Raise taxes every year until taxes are 60 percent ($11,000 per household) higher than today;
B) Eliminate every federal program except Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2045; or
C) Do nothing and watch the federal debt expand so much that even a minor interest rate response would induce a spiral of rising debt and interest rates, threatening the entire economy.