“America is a scooter-bound glutton who, when its continuously increasing mass finally overwhelms the doughtiest scooter’s capacities, shakes its fat fists like a mad baby and demands deliverance from the laws of physics.”
He has a serious point to make about the unsustainability of our collective fiscal demands, all of which is dwarfed by this quote.
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Wednesday ~ August 10th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Th
OK, I wasn’t really feeling that great all day and now you hit my last nerve. WTF do you mean by unsustainable and gluttony? Is a retirement system that pays near poverty income starting years past most other wealthy nations gluttonous? Is a country that collects 25% or more less in taxes than other wealthy countries gluttonous? Are we a wealthy country or not? Can we not provide our citizens with health care like even Cuba? Can we not afford to stack our elderly in rest homes on Medicaid? Is there any other reason our health care seems unsustainable other than our health care providers are far richer than anyone else’s? What other wealthy country provides so little unemployment benefits or housing assistance or food assistance as us? Gluttonous my ass. Unsustainable my ass. Our spending is only unsustainable if we refuse to pay because we certainly can if we want. We are still the wealthiest country in the world and yet one of the least generous to our poor, our elderly and our young.
Wednesday ~ August 10th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
plce
No we can’t raise taxes to pay for universal healthcare and social security because the higher taxes would cause our dynamic entrepreneurial economy to slow down and raise unemployment. Didn’t you notice how the dramatic tax cuts of Bush succeeded in producing the high growth – high employment economy we have today?
Thursday ~ August 11th, 2011 at 1:16 am
teageegeepea
Wilkinson was talking about the combined fiscal demands. So low taxes and entitlements and military and etc. “Yet 87% of Americans oppose tax increases on the middle- and lower-classes.” The American income tax is quite progressive by international standards (other welfare states tend to rely on a VAT, which is comparatively regressive), but we don’t target expenditures very well toward the poor. I weakly believe that our expenditures on the elderly are comparable to other industrialized countries, although it’s very plausible that we spend those dollars very inefficiently compared to others.
Thursday ~ August 11th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Th
I actually agree with most of what Wilkinson has to say about people wanting spending without taxes. I was one of the 12% or so that wanted all the Bush tax cuts to expire. My beef is with the idea that we have some gold plated safety net. We don’t and saying we do contributes to the very problems Wilkinson complains about. The people who keep harping on cutting wastefraudandabuse and everything will be hunky-dorry are the main problem creators. If Wilkinson wants to see the culprit, look in a mirror.
Thursday ~ August 11th, 2011 at 5:19 am
MP
His mistake is singling out America as if every other country out there has such actuarily sound demands on their states. (I’m looking at you Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal… maybe France, despite your recently reaffirmed rating….)
Thursday ~ August 11th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
IVV
Yeah, what part of the western world is actually not consuming more services than they can afford?
And who are the people that are footing the bill, ultimately?