A Second Rate Power?
2011-01-06 - by
Instead of one of those periodic calamities where the economy stumbles then rights itself it looks like this time America’s economic engine may have ruptured and faces a long, slow convalescence. That takes a decade. Or, maybe, doesn’t happen at all.
At a meeting of economists and businessmen and politicians this week UNC-President Erskine Bowles laid it out starkly, saying the government collects just enough taxes to pay for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare and the rest of the money it spends – on defense, fighting wars, education, roads, the FBI – is borrowed.
The other businessmen and economists were no more cheerful. They said the days of halcyon economic expansion are gone. That job growth is not keeping up with population growth. And that America faces becoming a second-rate power.
So in the year of our Lord 2011 we’ve got Russians with nuclear weapons, a billion Chinese building an economic juggernaut, an endless war in the mountains of Afghanistan and the only reason we’re relatively safe and snug in our homes is we are the firstrate powerin the world.
But that may be about to change – and Lord knows what will happen then.
We’ve borrowed and spent ourselves into a ditch but there are sixty million Americans receiving Social Security and a hundred million receiving Medicare or Medicaid and they make up a huge army of voters ready to make short work of any politician who dares to vote to cut either.
We’re caught between a rock and a hard place.
On one side we have the political pain of Congressmen looking people in the eye who are counting on Social Security and Medicare and saying, ‘We’ve made more promises than we can pay for’ and on the other side we have the pain of a moribund economy that condemns our children to trudging to work at MacDonald’s or Burger King or to having no job at all.
And if that isn’t hardship enough we’ve come face to face with what was unimaginable three years ago: We may be on the road to becoming a second rate power in a world full of powerful enemies.
A Second Rate Power?
2011-01-06/
Instead of one of those periodic calamities where the economy stumbles then rights itself it looks like this time America’s economic engine may have ruptured and faces a long, slow convalescence. That takes a decade. Or, maybe, doesn’t happen at all.
At a meeting of economists and businessmen and politicians this week UNC-President Erskine Bowles laid it out starkly, saying the government collects just enough taxes to pay for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare and the rest of the money it spends – on defense, fighting wars, education, roads, the FBI – is borrowed.
The other businessmen and economists were no more cheerful. They said the days of halcyon economic expansion are gone. That job growth is not keeping up with population growth. And that America faces becoming a second-rate power.
So in the year of our Lord 2011 we’ve got Russians with nuclear weapons, a billion Chinese building an economic juggernaut, an endless war in the mountains of Afghanistan and the only reason we’re relatively safe and snug in our homes is we are the firstrate powerin the world.
But that may be about to change – and Lord knows what will happen then.
We’ve borrowed and spent ourselves into a ditch but there are sixty million Americans receiving Social Security and a hundred million receiving Medicare or Medicaid and they make up a huge army of voters ready to make short work of any politician who dares to vote to cut either.
We’re caught between a rock and a hard place.
On one side we have the political pain of Congressmen looking people in the eye who are counting on Social Security and Medicare and saying, ‘We’ve made more promises than we can pay for’ and on the other side we have the pain of a moribund economy that condemns our children to trudging to work at MacDonald’s or Burger King or to having no job at all.
And if that isn’t hardship enough we’ve come face to face with what was unimaginable three years ago: We may be on the road to becoming a second rate power in a world full of powerful enemies.