This is an outstanding article for those who wish to live in reality, instead of tax and spend la la land.
Read the whole thing:
"What frustrates constructive debate is muddled public opinion.
Americans
hate deficits but desire more spending and reject higher taxes. In a
Pew poll, 87 percent of respondents favored present or greater Social
Security spending; only 10 percent backed cuts."
"
Only the occupant of the bully pulpit can yank public opinion back to
reality. This requires acknowledging that an aging America needs a new
social compact: one recognizing that longer life expectancies justify
gradual increases in Social Security's and Medicare's eligibility ages;
one accepting that sizable numbers of well-off retirees can afford to
pay more for their benefits or receive less; one that improves
generational fairness by concentrating help for the elderly more on the
needy and poor to lighten the burdens -- in higher taxes and fewer
public services -- on workers; and one that limits health costs."
"Little is possible while public opinion remains frozen in contradiction.
The mistake lies in thinking that the apparent paralysis isn't policy.
It is. Government is being slowly transformed into a vast old-age home,
with everything else devalued and degraded."
You're an idiot if you don't think it's possible in other countries.