'History Is Littered with Bad Ends to Fiscal Irresponsibility'

It’s probably fair to say that many people believe the best days of the American empire are behind us. That said, I would argue that the majority probably see a gentle decline, spanning decades or even centuries, with relatively minimal amounts of accompanying turmoil.

In a Barron’s commentary, “The Roads to Fiscal Ruin,” David C. Patterson suggests that the decline may well follow a script that is a whole lot bumpier than many expect if history is any guide. Here is an excerpt:

Actuarially, existing entitlements have already bankrupted us. Mighty and exceptional as we think we are, demography and arithmetic are mightier still. Everyone knows it. They have known it for some time. Yet none of these programs has ever been cut back in a material way, so powerful and tenacious are the attending lobbies.

We are just where those others were: captive to entrenched special interests that will brook no change to their positions, whatever the long-term danger.

We may lack others’ deep social divisions, but we have our own fissures. The U.S. is a large and diverse country in which the government is mistrusted, consensus is elusive and the political ground, once taken, is defended with the spirit of the pioneer. For sheer intransigence, we can stack the AARP or the trial lawyers up against the most intractable guild or elite of the Old World.

Before his health-care bill passed, the president said he would turn to the deficit next, that if it passed he would “own” it and personally undertake to fix any problem it created. History buffs will be forgiven for a little head-scratching over that one. There’s a striking image in Tolstoy’s War and Peace of Napoleon aboard the coach of history drawn forward by its racing steeds. The great man imagines himself in control, when in fact he is like a child hanging helplessly to the straps.

With large new entitlements like Obamacare, the decisive damage is done at the giddy moment when the signing pens are passed around, and the new special interests “vest.” The rest, as they say, is history.

It does not promise us a stately and peaceful decline. We will have what others have had: at the very least a divisive and even violent struggle as the crisis mounts. The longer we dither, the worse it will be, fed by the uniquely bitter passions that men have always reserved for governments that betray them, and being bankrupt, are too weak to help themselves.

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