Third Way's Jon Cowan. "The left's four fiscal fantasies" [View all]

[madfloridian]

Another View - Jon Cowan: The left's four fiscal fantasies

Sneaking in more ways to cut safety nets. He just can't resist it.

Fantasy No. 1 is that taxing the rich solves our problems
Fantasy No. 2 is that "we can have it all" — a bigger safety net and more investments that spur growth and opportunity. Events of the past 50 years say the opposite.

In the mid-1960s, the federal government spent $3 on public investments for every $1 on the major entitlement programs. By the early 1970s, the ratio was one to one. Last year, it flipped. The federal government spent $3 on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for every $1 on federal investments, according to our analysis of data from the Office of Management and Budget. By 2022, the ratio will be one to five. In other words, entitlement programs are drowning out public investments just as international competition and technology demand that we need these investments the most.

That is a 50-year trend, but what is most mind-boggling is that some on the left still cling to a belief — bordering on faith — that if a spending program is worthy, voters will support it without trade-offs

Fantasy No. 3 is that a delay on entitlement fixes is benign for the middle class. As evidence, some liberals point to this year's Medicare trustee report, in which the program's fiscal outlook — mercifully — improved. In truth, it improved from horrid to awful. We can't make even that boast about Social Security, where the outlook is plain wretched. Over the past 10 years, the Social Security insolvency date had leapt forward from 2042 to 2033. The hope was that an improving economy would push the date farther out. It did not, and every indicator of Social Security health worsened between the 2012 and 2013 trustee reports.

Fantasy No. 4 is that the politics to fix entitlements will get better. His meaning of the word "fix" means cut, I fear.