Do We Need Another Crisis?

Did you ever notice that in America we seem unable to fix any problem until we, as a nation, reach a point where we are hanging by a thread over a chasm of doom?  It seems to be inherent in a democratic system that politicians will not make any decision that will cause people even a little pain today in order fix a problem that everyone knows will become intolerable in the future.

Take our recent economic difficulties.  For years, a number of economists had predicted that the economic course we were on was unsustainable.  Past governments, Republican and Democrat, were spending too much (medicare, social security, foreign aid, two wars, prescription drugs, buying foreign oil, etc.) without paying for anything.   They simply added the cost to the deficit, leaving the tough decisions to future legislators.  Now some of these new programs were necessary and it was right that they were enacted.  The mistake was not in establishing the programs, but in the failure to have the courage to find a way to pay for them.  In our system, legislators are quite willing to enact programs that people want or need, but are unwilling to make the hard decisions to cut programs that are not working or raise taxes to pay for new programs.  It is much easier, and of course politically expedient, to pass the cost on to the future. 

Consider how the health care debate is going now.  Everyone who pays attention knows we, as a nation, spend too much on health care.  We spend thousands of dollars per person more than other nations on health care and get less for what we spend.  Our health care is far from the best in the world, as some would have you believe.  We’ve known for years that our health-care costs are rising at an unsustainable rate.   It is not unreasonable to think that health care might consume 30 or 40 percent of our economy in the not too distant future.  Costs are rising so fast that every day thousands of Americans lose their insurance coverage. A few years ago, most small businesses provided health insurance for their employees.  Today only an ever shrinking number do so.  Larger employers face ever increasing health-care costs. Yet, we Americans do worse on almost every health measure than most advanced industrial countries, which spend about half as much on health care per person and have proportionately more elderly people.   

So what are we doing about this impending tsunami?  We have some legislators who, instead of making an effort to engage in a meaningful discussion, are screaming that the Obama administration is endorsing murder boards, which will pull the plug on grandma, or is trying to turn the nation communist.  The lack of serious discussion is tragic, because we democrats, who are trying to make some necessary reforms, typically seem unwilling to put forward specifics on how the reforms will be financed.  They say we’ll cut some programs that aren’t working and raise taxes on the rich.  What programs?  How much will be gained by the tax raise?  Obama says he will pay for the program, but really has not said how. 

Health care, social security, energy dependence and two wars are our most serious future problems.  The Obama administration is trying to take them on (which is an improvement over past Democrat and Republican administrations), but if truth be told, it is not doing so very well.  Each of these problems is getting worse every day.  We need both Republicans and Democrats to get serious about fixing them, instead of bickering and trying for political advantage, at the expense of fixing them.  Most important we need Americans to get on the backs of their Representatives and Senators and insist they do something constructive.   If not that, then I guess we should hope for another crisis.