The United States has hit the proverbial jackpot, with a rapidly aging population, a $106 trillion unfunded liability, an administration that has piled more unfunded healthcare obligations upon our future unborn generations, spineless politicians that refuse to address the crisis, and as icing on the cake 700 military basis spread throughout the world and an annual defense budget of $895 billion equaling the total spending of the next 11 countries combined. The number of Americans over 65 will surge by 35% over the next 10 years and then by an additional 30% in the following decade. Baby Boom demographics have caught up with politician promises. Therein lays the dilemma. Every day 10,000 Americans turn 50 years old. They will not vote for anyone who promises to cut their entitlements. It is the American way to ignore long term problems until the crisis arrives. Politicians could have proactively addressed the out of control entitlement issue ten years ago. They did not. Now it is too late. The crisis is upon us.

“The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.” – David M. Walker

The United States of America is the modern day Roman Empire. Any reasonably intelligent person with a calculator can figure out that this will end in economic collapse. And still, we do nothing. Not only do we do nothing, we push our foot down on the accelerator by spending $2 trillion on wars of choice, commit $16 trillion to new drug coverage for seniors, and national healthcare for all at an unknown cost. There is one law that cannot be skirted. An unsustainable trend will not be sustained.

 America’s welfare state delusions have been built upon decades of indoctrination, misinformation and the ridiculous belief that heavily taxing the productive and redistributing it to the non-productive benefits society. A nation of 310 million people cannot be governed based on emotional sob stories, but this is the tactic used by liberals to enact ever more entitlements and safety nets without consideration of cost. Steven F. Hayward describes the liberal mindset:
“Liberalism’s irrepressible drive for an ever larger welfare state without limit arises from at least two premises upon which the left no longer reflects: the elevation of compassion to a political principle (albeit with other people’s money) and the erosion of meaningful constitutional limits on government on account of the imperatives of the idea of Progress.” 

Liberals have used these tactics to jam through unemployment benefits now reaching 99 weeks. They used these tactics during the healthcare debate. Emotion based sob stories always overcome rational debate, discussions of cost, and overall impact on society. The problem with making decisions with long term fiscal implications based upon compassion only is that you will run out of money before you run out of compassion. Author William Voegeli points out that there is no end to the liberal compassion-fest:

“Because compassion is an emotional response rather than a moral principle, it defeats every attempt to make wise choices about which sufferers do and don’t deserve governmentally dispensed solace.”

The more programs that are created and expanded the larger the constituency for never ending the program. There is no example in the history of the country where a program has been deemed a failure and scrapped. Entitlement programs never die. The current lot of myopic, bought by special interests politicians do not have the guts to cut or even reduce the growth rate of entitlements. Thomas Sowell captures the essence of America today in this quote: