Statistics and Safety Nets

No one has the slightest doubt that European nations, particularly the PIIGS, have simply borrowed themselves into oblivion. It seems that the cost of all those safety nets and individual economic rights (job protection, holidays, pensions, etc.) have blown Europe off the economic map. Individual taxes here are lower than Europe, and raising them appears to be off the table. And while we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, among multinationals who are given so many loopholes, the effective U.S. tax rate, what they actually pay, is among the lowest in the world.

Our debt crisis comes from fighting wars without paying for them, and a general notion that leverage was good for business… until about 2008. But really, what are the measurements of what it is like to live in the United States, statistics on social success? “Every developed country aspires to provide a better life for its people. The United States, among the richest of all, fails in important ways. It has the highest poverty and the highest infant mortality among developed nations. We provide among the least generous unemployment benefits in the industrial world. Not long ago one of the most educated countries in the world, the United States is slipping behind.” Eduado Porter writing for the August 14^th New York Times.

How about the poster child for lazy excess, Italy, where nothing seems to be working? “Italy may be in a funk, with a shrinking economy and a high unemployment rate, but the United States can learn a lot from it, and not just about the benefits of public health care. Italians live longer. Their poverty rate is much lower than ours. If they lose their jobs or suffer some other misfortune, they can turn to a more generous social safety net.” NY Times.

Fact is, we cannot continue to survive with the notion that we can live in a society that is aging rapidly, even with the minimal social programs we have, and not raise taxes. “[R]ich though we are, we can’t afford the policies needed to improve our [social quality of life] record. The politicians in Washington all know that we face a long-term fiscal crisis. By 2020, 70 million Americans are expected to be on Social Security, up from 45 million in 2000. The ranks on Medicare will swell to 64 million, up from 40 million in 2000. Virtually every economist knows that just maintaining Medicare and Medicaid benefits will require raising taxes on the middle class.” NY Times. When you’re 40, maybe you don’t care… but unless you are unlucky, you too will face those “once golden” years.

We are being lied to and coddled into a sense that we can have the largest military in the world, Medicare and Social Security, good schools and solid infrastructure with a graying population and not have to pay for it. Affordable Car Act or not. Lies that will compound to the extent that we let the situation get worse before we address reality. Costs that will reduce our competitive productivity until we are so far behind, we cannot catch up.

If we actually had politicians who believed in this country, enough to invest in its schools, infrastructure and its research, and if they understood President Eisenhower’s warning to us all of an overwhelming military force with the economic power to force itself to the top of our national priorities (the “military industrial complex” phrase he created) and began to scale back in supporting this monster, this country has enough spunk, drive, creativity and entrepreneurship to re-accelerate into an incredibility bright future.

Instead, we have polarized into two increasingly hostile worlds – elites who control most of everything and everyone else. The powers that be have managed to get factions within “everyone else” to battle each other… for now… but when there is nothing left to lose, exactly how will “everybody else” react? Let’s not get to that point, and let’s start caring about how long we live, how healthy we are, what education and training we can achieve and then see what America the beautiful can accomplish.

Let’s lose the SuperPacs and “stupid politician” tricks. Candidate Romney has accused his opponent of trying to turn the United States into Europe with his social programs, and obviously that doesn’t work, right? We really don’t need to live longer and have better healthcare. He prefers the other European policies of austerity that have plunged Euro zone back into the recession. And the President just doesn’t seem to know how to command his military into a reasonable long-term plan that we can afford. When is common sense going to be remotely relevant again? Ever?

In the meantime, we can just watch politicians spout the same-old-same-old worthless slogans and rehashed failed programs to a decreasingly educated and increasingly gullible electorate.