Many people believe that runaway spending on middle class entitlement (aka, “transfer payments“) threatens to undermine the federal budget. Automatically indexed spending on medicare and social security, in particular, promises to entirely starve the discretionary spending pool of oxygen. But they’re very popular politically, and as the WaPo’s Steven Pearlstein posits, the middle class is merely emulating the ruling class, whether in politics, industry or the academy:
For the American public, Daschle became the latest symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington — the influence-peddling and corner-cutting and sacrifice of the public good to private interest. Now that this system has let them down, and left them poorer and anxious about the future, people are angry about it and no longer willing to accept the corruption of the public process and the whole notion of public service.
The irony, of course, is that Barack Obama understood all this and tapped into Americans’ frustration as the central message of his “change” campaign. But even he, with only four years in Washington, failed to see the depth of the problem or anticipate the ferocity of the backlash.
The honeymoon is over.
Those euphemistically named transfer payment have to stop or the country will be eaten alive by them.
I don’t think ending them will happen, however. We’re already past the tipping point. It’s kinda like being in a box canyon in a Cessna 152 and seeing the wall. All you can do is watch the wall approach, then smack you.
It’s about GD time the media took a harder look at P.BO and what he really is all about.
Too bad it didn’t happen before November 4th.
The question I keep asking myself is: How is it we can expect the people who lead us into this (Fill in the Blank) mess to lead us out of it? If you don’t want to believe they did it on purpose fully aware of the consequences then you must conclude they are incompetent and should not lead us out. If they did it knowing full well the consequences then they are liable and therefore disqualified.
Whether the mess on Wall Street, our education system mess, fiscal mess at every level of government I say the current leadership class has failed us completely. In a country with the vast resources and talent we have isn’t it time for some more “junior” leaders to step up and replace the senior class who so betrayed the trust given them?
I can’t believe there isn’t a Doctor somewhere in America that has actually run a hospital who could not do as good, and likely better job, of coming up with solutions to our health care issues than a political hack like Daschle.
Likewise for fixing the banking system – perhaps a lone tenured President of a mid-sized regional banking system instead of Wall Street elites who, as the OPED suggests, don’t get it and won’t.
Some small private college President that thrives despite lacking a Harvard size endowment to help clean up Education.
In other words – the current team failed – lets get some a new one.
My fantasies keep me believing even as the country crumbles before my eyes….
OldT6 hit the nail on the head. Search out the best qualified and appoint them. But you have to look OUTSIDE the current gene pool or you get more of the same.
[...] (h/t: Neptunuslex) [...]
T6, for the banker, I recommend the CEO of BB&T. He may be a Randroid, but in his case that seems to mean he’s a straight arrow, at least judging by their Web site. For a college admin, well look to Hillsdale of course. My former next-door neighbor allowed his two boys a choice of extremes for college, USMA and Hillsdale. One went to West Point and is now a Foreign Area Officer, the other went to Hillsdale and after annoying his Mom by breaking a leg in 7 places on a motorcycle at Road Atlanta, is running the family business.
We’ll keep ending up with B’s and C’s in office (e.g. Daschle) because the talented folks are too busy inventing things and building companies. If you’re successful at anything else, you’d have to have a screw loose to jump into the political mess.