Friday, March 15, 2013

We waited four years....for this?

Today's too-good-to-excerpt editorial in the Washington Post about the Senate budget: "The Democrats' complacent budget plan"
It is on the issue of entitlements that the Democrats’ document really disappoints. There is literally nothing — not a word — suggestive of trimming Social Security, whether through greater means-testing, a more realistic inflation adjustment or reforming disability benefits.
Didn't I call it?  Oh yes I did.
As for the coming flow of baby boomers into Medicare, the Democrats declare that “new retirees deserve the same promise of quality, affordable health care from which their parents have benefitted — and it is the position of the Senate Budget that they ought to get it.” There’s plenty of excoriation for the GOP “premium support” plan. But there’s no explanation of how the Democrats would pay for their “promise” — nary a hint of the many cost-saving reforms that would extend Medicare’s life without embracing the GOP plan.
In other words: "we don't have a plan, we just know we don't like yours."
In short, this document gives voters no reason to believe that Democrats have a viable plan for — or even a responsible public assessment of — the country’s long-term fiscal predicament. Read alongside the GOP’s own partisan outline, it leaves only a faint hope that sensible members of both parties, together with Mr. Obama, might yet meet in the serious middle.
On this last point, I agree that Paul Ryan's plan is a stiff thumb in the eye, especially the umpteenth attempt to repeal Obamacare.  (It's going to wither on the vine anyway when the states can't set up exchanges and companies start to self-insure).  But at least the House plan acknowledges long-term debt obligations.  For Obama and Patty Murray, it's like the guy who jumped out of a 60-story building and while passing the 20th floor saying: "No crisis yet."

Extra - From Veronique de Rugy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But at least the House plan acknowledges long-term debt obligations.

Yes, further raising the national debt is a form of acknowledgement.