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We Are All Socialists Now
From In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French. Damned boomers again. America's worst generation (and yes, I am one of that generation much to my shame), even though I'm like many here, one of the few to fight against the boomer tide it was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly. People on the right and the left want government to invest in alternative energies in order to break our addiction to foreign oil. And it is unlikely that even the reddest of states will decline federal money for infrastructural improvements. Back that truck the hell up! This was NOT NOT NOT a "conservative" GOP Administration - Bush was a moderate, and a "Big Government" type, as were Delay and the idiots in Congress. They ABANDONED basic Reaganist small government and fiscal conservatism, and the only reason they were there was the alternative (which we are seeing now) was far worse. SO that's a HUGE lie at the core of this. The rest you can fisk on your own If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world. As the Obama administration presses the largest fiscal bill in American history, caps the salaries of executives at institutions receiving federal aid at $500,000 and introduces a new plan to rescue the banking industry, the unemployment rate is at its highest in 16 years. The Dow has slumped to 1998 levels, and last year mortgage foreclosures rose 81 percent. All of this is unfolding in an economy that can no longer be understood, even in passing, as the Great Society vs. the Gipper. Whether we like it or not--or even whether many people have thought much about it or not--the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone--a roughly 14-point gap, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the euro zone--a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French. And the left is so tickled that we are going to become "French" and demolish American Excpetionalism and cripple ourselves and our posterity. Traitorous SOBs. Time to dismantle DC, either now vial the ballot box, or within a decade via the cartridge box. Posted by: OldSpook 2009-02-11 |
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