Ad Nauseum
By James Hamilton
We hear again from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees that the state of these two programs is perilous and that immediate action will lessen the need for drastic action in the future. Yawn.
We Amerians - as a whole - have never been motivated by anything less than crisis. We can hear warnings until the prophets are blue in the face (or until they're silent altogether), but we won't act until the situation is imminent. How many times have you read these words in this space?
There is a whole industry devoted to assuring the American people that nothing is wrong with Social Security that a good tax increase won't solve. Add to this the unwillingness of politicians - Republicans and Democrats alike - even to talk honestly about the issue and we've got a situation ripe for crisis. Earnest attempts by elected officials and others to raise the issue are shouted down. "There is no crisis!"
Electricity blackouts, hunger, pre-empting "American Idol" with a speech by the president... these are the things that get our attention because their effects are immediate. Even the sufferings of hurricane victims or the plight of our men and women in Iraq and elsewhere (or of the Iraqis themselves) fail to rise very far on our radar screens if we're not immediately or intimately affected.
So, one more time America, the coming fiscal crisis is real. Act now or quit your bellyachin'.
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