As usual, any program conceived by politicians always has unintended consequences because they have not properly considered the potential scenarios. A properly run Ponzi scheme like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid requires that enough new money come into the system from new suckers to pay off the old suckers. With the old suckers living much longer than anticipated and not enough new suckers being born, politicians have resorted to doing absolutely nothing. Any politician who proposes any adjustment, restriction or cut in these programs is immediately ridiculed, spat upon and run out of office by the AARP and the entitled classes. The U.S. is about to experience what Great Britain and Japan have already experienced. The major difference is that Japan and Great Britain did not have to fund warfare along with welfare like the U.S. has been doing for half a century. This experiment of delusion will not end well.
Great Britain's experiment in socialism came crashing down much sooner than Japan, as their population was much older. Their system degenerated into a system of state handouts, high taxation, no economic incentives, slow productivity, high inflation, and economic stagnation. Social transfers rose from 2.2% of GDP in 1930, to 10% in 1960, 13% in 1970 and 17% by 1980. Unions controlled the politicians and resisted all efforts to institute incentives based upon traditional capitalistic principles. Margaret Thatcher was able to slow the advancement of the welfare state for awhile, but was unable to put a stake through its heart. Great Britain continues its long-term decline with a GDP equal to Italy today. Japan, on the other hand, appeared to have figured it out, with the most dynamic welfare state economy in the world from 1970 until 1990. But, then the wheels came off. Demographics have a way of ruining the best laid plans of politicians.
As the life expectancy of the Japanese has risen to the highest in the world at 83 years old, the birth rate in the country plunged. There are more people dying than are being born every year in Japan. They are the oldest society on earth, with 21% of the population over the age of 65, versus 12.8% in the United States. Japan has been in a two decade long slump and has squandered their national wealth on wasteful stimulus programs while failing to address the impossibility of fulfilling their welfare state promises. Japan's welfare budget is equal to three quarters of tax revenues. Its debt exceeds one quadrillion yen, or 170% of GDP. On its current path toward 240% of GDP, Japan is doomed. As recently as the early-1970s, social expenditures amounted to only about 6% of Japan's national income. In 1992 that portion of the national budget was 18%, and it was expected that by 2025, 27% of national income would be spent on social welfare.
Niall Ferguson sums up the situation for most of the developed world:
"Longer life is good news for individuals, but it is bad news for the welfare state and the politicians who have to persuade voters to reform it. The even worse news is that, even as the world's population is getting older, the world itself may be getting more dangerous."
Dangerous LiaisonThe United States has hit the proverbial jackpot, with a rapidly aging population, a $106 trillion unfunded liability, an administration that has piled more unfunded healthcare obligations upon our future unborn generations, spineless politicians that refuse to address the crisis, and as icing on the cake 700 military bases spread throughout the world and an annual defense budget of $895 billion equaling the total spending of the next 11 countries combined. The number of Americans over 65 will surge by 35% over the next 10 years and then by an additional 30% in the following decade. Baby Boom demographics have caught up with politician promises. Therein lays the dilemma. Every day 10,000 Americans turn 50 years old. They will not vote for anyone who promises to cut their entitlements. It is the American way to ignore long term problems until the crisis arrives. Politicians could have proactively addressed the out of control entitlement issue ten years ago. They did not. Now it is too late. The crisis is upon us.
"The US government is on a "burning platform" of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon." David M. Walker
The United States of America is the modern day Roman Empire. Any reasonably intelligent person with a calculator can figure out that this will end in economic collapse. And still, we do nothing. Not only do we do nothing, we push our foot down on the accelerator by spending $2 trillion on wars of choice, commit $16 trillion to new drug coverage for seniors, and national healthcare for all at an unknown cost. There is one law that cannot be skirted. An unsustainable trend will not be sustained.
America's welfare state delusions have been built upon decades of indoctrination, misinformation and the ridiculous belief that heavily taxing the productive and redistributing it to the non-productive benefits society. A nation of 310 million people cannot be governed based on emotional sob stories, but this is the tactic used by liberals to enact ever more entitlements and safety nets without consideration of cost. Steven F. Hayward describes the liberal mindset:
"Liberalism's irrepressible drive for an ever larger welfare state without limit arises from at least two premises upon which the left no longer reflects: the elevation of compassion to a political principle (albeit with other people's money) and the erosion of meaningful constitutional limits on government on account of the imperatives of the idea of Progress."
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