“I don’t worry about the deficit,” said Reagan. “It’s big enough to take care of itself.” That was a joke, as he saw it. But do other people see it that way? The widespread indifference to our fiscal predicament is no joke.
A few days ago, I recorded a podcast with Kevin D. Williamson on this subject: the subject of the deficit, the debt, entitlements, our politics, our future — all that. (All that, in a relatively brief podcast? Yes.) If interested, go here.
In the last couple of weeks, Kevin and I, along with others, have been writing about our national finances, particularly where entitlements are concerned. He had a piece called “There Is No Painless Way to Balance the Budget.” I had one called “‘Pennies from Heaven’” (title explained therein). (It relates to Johnny Carson.)
Time was, many leading Democrats said, in essence, “We need to go after waste, fraud, and abuse. That’ll take care of our fiscal problems.” Republicans laughed them to scorn. Starting in 2016, Republicans brought out that same canard: “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Today, you can hear it from Donald Trump (once more), and Fox personalities, and others.
There is a new piece in their rhetorical repertoire: “woke programs,” or “wokeness.” “Cut out wokeness!”
Okay. By all means, cut out “wokeness.” And cut out all the waste, fraud, and abuse you can find. Every penny. Great. Now you’ve saved about 49 bucks. Can we get serious about spending, please? What are the defense needs of this country? And should entitlements be reformed, before it’s too late?
In our podcast, Kevin says something interesting about entitlements (well, many things): People bristle at this word “entitlements.” And when they do, they’re apt to say, “Social Security is not an entitlement. I’m entitled to it!” Yes, exactly.
Kevin also says, “As long as I’ve been writing for public consumption — about 30 years — I’ve tried to explain to people that there is no such thing as a Social Security trust fund.” To no avail, however. Running against Governor George W. Bush in 2000, Vice President Al Gore spoke of a “lockbox.” No such thing as that, either.
Toward the end of our podcast, we talk about the GOP and the Right: the transformation of. As I said in my above-linked piece, I noticed something striking in 2019. Something that marked a big change. News accounts reported an exchange between Rush Limbaugh and a caller.
Caller: “There’s gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn’t really care about that. He’s not really a fiscal conservative.”
Rush: “Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.”
In recent days, the Club for Growth has been attacking Mitch Daniels. As Brian Riedl pointed out, this is like the Chicago Bulls Fan Club attacking Michael Jordan. I think back to Dusty Rhodes and other erstwhile, sterling Club for Growthers. It could dizzy the mind and wound the heart.
Kevin speaks of the phenomenon of “donor capture” — a phenomenon we see all around us. He also says that, if institutions are going to be something else — something other than what they were — there have to be new ones, to do the jobs those other institutions were doing.
I feel this way about words, by the way. If “international” is going to mean “foreign,” we need a new word that means what “international” once did. I could go on.
But I should stop. Again, to hear this podcast from Kevin and me, go here.
Another friend of mine wrote me to say, “It looks like ‘woke’ is the new ‘waste, fraud, and abuse.’” Yes. Just eliminate the woke — along with waste, fraud, and abuse, for old times’ sake — and you got your house in order. (Is that a unicorn I see in the backyard?)