Trouble

It isn't difficult to see that trouble is coming. All you have to do is leave the fantasy world that has been constructed by the Democrats, the Obama administration, and by their trained hamsters in the media. In that fantasy world, profligate and irresponsible entitlement spending, massive debt, new and ever-expanding entitlements, and the unrelenting growth of government can be offset by taxation, specifically taxes targeted at "the rich." No matter that taxes on "the rich" cannot pay the bills, no matter that trillion dollar deficits lead us nowhere, no matter that things that cannot last forever, won't, the fantasy seems to hold sway. Reform social security and medicare? Not a chance. Reduce the number of people who are dependent on government? Nah, rather than trying to reduce dependency, actively recruit new dependents (e.g., food stamps, social security disability) so that the roles swell ever larger.

The democrats are the driver of this fantasy, but the Republicans have been culpable as well, unable or unwilling to stem the flow of dollars from our pockets into the maw of the federal spending. And by the way, any politician who suggests that the solution rests with stopping "fraud, waste and abuse" is lying. Unless we reduce the size of government, thereby reducing the size of fraud, waste and abuse, we're in deep trouble.

It appears that the Director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees:

(CNSNews.com) - The United States faces "fundamental fiscal challenges" stemming from the growth in spending for Social Security and major health care programs," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf told a gathering in Washington on Tuesday.

The rising cost of those programs leaves Americans with "unpleasant" choices to make, but the sooner they're made, the better, he said:

"So we have a choice as a society to either scale back those programs relative to what is promised under current law; or to raise tax revenue above its historical average to pay for the expansion of those programs; or to cut back on all other spending even more sharply than we already are," Elmendorf said.

"And we haven't actually decided as a society...what we're going to do. But some combination of those three choices will be needed."

Elmendorf said there are various ways to proceed: "But they tend to be unpleasant in one way or another, and we have not, as a society, decided how much of that sort of unpleasantness to inflict on whom."

So, in the through-the-looking-glass world of Washington, DC unpleasantness is equated with responsible fiscal restraint. And demagogues like Barack Obama will suggest that we must leave "the age of austerity" (a laughable characterization were in not so blatantly dishonest) and spend even more, expand entitlements even more, take on debt even more.

Elmendorf said Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Obamacare will be much more expensive relative to GDP in future years because health care costs are rising, subsidized health insurance is expanding, and the population is aging: "There will be a third more people receiving Social Security Medicare benefits a decade from now than there are today," he noted.

No worries ... our kids and grand kids will happily foot the bill, won't they?

No?

Then trouble is coming.