Gracious, Social Security is popular! This is awful! Patterico, sobbing:
A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that a majority of the public does not want steep entitlement cuts.
Well, of course not! That’s why they aren’t happening.
Look: our system is fundamentally flawed. It’s time we realized it. The flaw is structural. We have voters voting for what they want, coupled with endless borrowing so that there is no mechanism to make them pay for it — either through spending cuts, taxes, or whatever it takes.
It’s as if you put the children in charge of what happens in a household, by declaring that the children get to vote for which parent they like best — with the understanding that no goodies or leniency ever carries any cost. So the parents compete to see who can give the kids the most candy, let them stay up the latest, etc.
It’s no way to run a household and no way to run a country.
If we don’t pass something structural to address the issue, like a strong balanced budget amendment, we’re doomed.
As Ross Perot used to say: it’s that simple, folks.
Exactly! You surely can't have voters deciding such things. Children!
When you cut to the nut of it, that's your Conservative Action Plan: voters are stupid and infantile, let's treat them as such, and we should follow the wisdom of the incredibly wealthy.
As it happens, we're not doomed. All other western democracies have much more developed social programs than we do, and no worse finances. And they are not tyrranies. We need a better regulated financial sector and for rich people to pay their fucking taxes.
Social Security and Medicare are popular programs because they work.
The reason wingnuts have a hard time convincing people otherwise is that the checks are in the mail and the medical bills get paid.
Hence, you know, the determined GOP assault on government that works... intended to prove to prove that government doesn't work!
Because if government works, then we have to face the horror of "We have voters voting for what they want." The ultimate nightmare, for your Patterico-caliber stooges.
When gobs of money stop magically appearing for stupid wars called for by crazy authoritarians, that's when I'll stop believing America can't have a decent healthcare system.
Motherfucker.