A recurring example of the self-defeating nature of political handling of economics is the looming insolvency of Medicare and Social Security. Like energy issues, the problems have been identified for decades but political will favors short-term spending to gin up reelection support at the expense of long-term planning. So the government borrows against the programs’ surplus during flush times to support present concerns such as corporate subsidies and defense spending, leaving the difference to be made up during someone else’s term. The demographic event of Baby Boomer retirement will also strain the system precisely when incoming payments will see a dramatic decline. The current projection has Medicare insolvent by 2019 (Social Security will hold up until something like 2041), and the growth of the two programs would eventually consume all federal revenue (a parallel to the growing weight of interest on the national debt). Yet any proposal to address the underlying factors by raising taxes, reforming health care, restricting or delaying benefits, or rolling back subsidies or other spending all have unpleasant political consequences, hence the characterization of Social Security and Medicare as the ‘third rail’ of politics.

The $53 trillion asteroid

The comments to the article fall into two, largely partisan groups - those who place the blame on Republican spending and rail against the establishment, and those who blame Democratic spending and call for tangential conservative planks such as expelling illegal immigrants, repealing the Teachers’ Union, etc. More instructive are comparative discussions of programs in Canada and Australia and how they’ve dealt with their own respective shortfalls.