CRUNCH TIME!

SEE HERE The point is that government is irresponsible when it spends money like a drunken sailor (as Ronald Reagon said, this is an insult to the sailors because they were spending their own money). It is essentially impossible to prevent this kind of runaway debt and deficits if there is not some tool of restraint put in place. A balanced budget amendment might be a start, but there also should be some kind of changes that limit the way Congress can spend money. The growth of simply arbitrary entitlement programs is unwarranted and essentially unconstitutional. The Founders never envisioned the government just creating money transfer programs robbing Peter to pay Paul will ever find Paul in favor. There nothing like "You deserve a free pony" as Jerry Doyle characterizes it, to buy off voters. The American tax system is approaching the point where 50% of workers pay no income tax at all. It's actually worse than that, because many who don't pay tax get government money through various benefits that actually let you get money that you didn't pay the government back in the form of remissions. That's an entitlement disguised as a tax return. Once we are buying off more tax payers than are paying the taxes the system goes unstable as there ceases to be any restraint on the politicians. The Margaret Thatcher effect takes over: "Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money." Well, we need to get this thing under control before it collapses. It's not clear how much advance warning we'll have. Will it be graceful degradation or systemic collapse? Everyone is whistling past the graveyard. Someone has to do something that makes sense soon I think.