Deficit, Budget Woes Need Solutions as U.S. Nears the Precipice - WSJ.com

Deficit, Budget Woes Need Solutions as U.S. Nears the Precipice - WSJ.com

What clearly needs to be on the table if one wants to have economic growth (including the changes and adaptations to a post-industrial economy) is a reduction in the amount of GDP being taken by government (i.e. the 19% number discovered in the 1980's).

The alternative, which the Democrats believe will work but hasn't in the US (i.e. California, Michigan, etc.) is the soak the rich and businesses and hope you can continue to give people benefits based on need and not on the ability or desire to pay (which appears to be the approach as outlined in this article).

It sure looks as though the US is embarked upon the current consumption vs. a better future life mode. It's impossible to think of the US going back to the image of the hardworking immigrants who do menial jobs to give their children an education and chance for a better future.

Instead we want everything we can get now; and, the country is taking the place of the consumer running up their own credit cards, they are asking (with Pelosi, et al being more than willing) to have the Federal and State governments run up government credit cards - with a never mind about ever paying them off.

If the rest of the world acts like the banks who raise rates and fees to consumers - but, this time, raises them for the whole society - the current period may look like a golden era (just as the 1960's did for those who saw the country languish in the 1970's).