The Shrinking Possibility of Hope

The caption under this picture in the Wall Street Journal this morning was priceless: "Obama gets taken for a ride by the UAW." Holman Jenkin's column "Obama Hears a Giant Sucking Sound," is a refreshing perspective. As terrified as those of us on the right are about a tsunami of liberalism headed our way, the reality is that his hands are probably tied. "Mr. Obama must be looking around and beginning to suspect he will be pouring his political capital, along with considerable taxpayer capital, down bottomless holes for the next four years. He won't be building a legacy as the new FDR, but cleaning up after the last one." I love how Holman finishes the piece:

That Mr. Obama had been sent by history to assuage the insecurities of the middle class with a "New" New Deal was always a tad detached from reality anyway. The reason is those giant legacies of existing New Dealism known as Social Security and Medicare, about which he was careful to say nothing intelligible during the campaign. These programs worked for a while too, but now their expected revenues are (in present value) about $99.2 trillion short of the expected outlays required to assure present and future workers their promised comfort in retirement.

Then again, Mr. Obama did say something in his campaign about tax rebates for all these payroll taxpayers. He also said something about government matching contributions to incentivize today's low- and middle-income workers to save for their own retirement.

Voilà, personal accounts funded by payroll-tax givebacks -- strangely similar to the solution our current president promoted to help workers escape the impending insolvency of the government retirement programs. Mr. Obama envisioned himself extending FDR's work. He may end up finishing George Bush's.

Look folks - at some point we are going to have to face the $99.2 TRILLION shortfall in Social Security and Medicaid. We can't print our way out of it...I doubt we can grow our way out. The only hope is for an honest, sober assessment of the situation and a realistic plan to scale entitlements back. Otherwise we are doomed to the ash heap. Now would be a good time to do it too...the economy's in the tank, the news every day is bad...one good dose of cod-liver oil reality and let's get on with it!