It’s coming

Writing in today’s NY Times, David Brooks predicts that the “Do-Nothing Conspiracy” that exists today will dramatically transform politics and America. Everybody knows that expanding entitlements will crush the economy:

Tax increases on that scale would decimate the economy. Benefit cuts would cause pain. Doing nothing would lead to enormous deficits, an immobilized government and stratospheric interest rates. It would mean the end of the United States as a great economic power.

But because the political parties are so polarized, nothing can be done. Even this past week, Congress couldn’t vote to slightly slow the growth of Medicaid; where will they ever find the backbone to trim Medicare or Social Security? As a result, both parties are going to pay a price:

But over time, the entitlements crisis will begin to transform politics. The parties will grow less cohesive. The Democrats are held together by the common goal of passing domestic programs that address national needs - like covering the uninsured. But with all the money going to cover entitlements, there will be no way to afford new proposals. Republicans, meanwhile, owe their recent victories to the popularity of tax cuts. But those will be impossible, too. Both parties will lose a core reason for being.

The government has made promises it simply cannot keep and the expansion of entitlement spending is crowding out the discretionary spending that many people call “government.” Now is the time for Washington to behave like adults and make the painful choices, before the federal government is transformed into little more than a fund-transfer station.