Era of Entitlements Nearly Over?

Interesting op/ed piece by Michael Barone. Most things seem to run in cycles... hopefully he's right and we're finally going to see an end to the era of entitlements. Just in time, too... since we've already run outta money to pay for most of 'em.

Michael Barone: History suggests that era of entitlements is nearly over
January 12, 2013


Social Security card on payroll deduction chart

It's often good fun and sometimes revealing to divide American history into distinct periods of uniform length. In working on my forthcoming book on American migrations, internal and immigrant, it occurred to me that you could do this using the American-sounding interval of 76 years, just a few years more than the biblical lifespan of three score and ten.

It was 76 years from Washington's First Inaugural in 1789 to Lincoln's Second Inaugural in 1865. It was 76 years from the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 to the attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Going backward, it was 76 years from the First Inaugural in 1789 to the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which settled one of the British-French colonial wars. And going 76 years back from Utrecht takes you to 1637, when the Virginia and Massachusetts Bay colonies were just getting organized.

As for our times, we are now 71 years away from Pearl Harbor. The current 76-year interval ends in December 2017.

Each of these 76-year periods can be depicted as a distinct unit. In the Colonial years up to 1713, very small numbers of colonists established separate cultures that have persisted to our times.

...

We are seeing something like this again today. The welfare state arrangements that once seemed solid are on the path to unsustainability.

Entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- are threatening to gobble up the whole government and much of the private sector, as well.

Lifetime employment by one big company represented by one big union is a thing of the past. People who counted on corporate or public-sector pensions are seeing them default.

Looking back, we are as far away in time today from victory in World War II in 1945 as Americans were at the time of the Dred Scott decision from the First Inaugural.

We are as far away in time today from passage of the Social Security in 1935 as Americans then were from the launching of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

Nevertheless our current president and most politicians of his party seem determined to continue the current welfare state arrangements -- historian Walter Russell Mead calls this the blue-state model -- into the indefinite future.

Some leaders of the other party are advancing ideas for adapting a system that worked reasonably well in an industrial age dominated by seemingly eternal big units into something that can prove workable in an information age experiencing continual change and upheaval wrought by innovations in the market economy.

The current 76-year period is nearing its end. What will come next?

Read more: Michael Barone: History suggests that era of entitlements is nearly over | WashingtonExaminer.com

 

Republicans have been hoping for the death of Social Security for...oh....almost EIGHTY years (78 this year).

And ALWAYS are disappointed.

 

Even if you are correct, it is a horrible thing to contemplate.

A whole lot of good, honest poor people are going to starve and possibly die because of the actions of a few. I do not see what is so good about this.

 

Gee I sure hope so. Who wouldn't want to live in a country where hordes of the aged are living under freeways begging at stop lights.

 

that remids of that ghost of tom joad thats exactly what it says in that

 

From the article in the OP.

Entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- are threatening to gobble up the whole government and much of the private sector, as well.

I actually agree. When we started social security, the average life expectancy was 67. Now what it is? 80? Utterly and totally unsustainable, and the age needs to be raised. Social Security was never intended to allow an early retirement by folks and clearly, utterly clear;y, has been abused by one of the most powerful voting blocks, that being seniors.

All in my wise and utterly correct opinion of course.

Now couple that with the fact that there is a max on the taxes for Social Security, meaning that above a certain amount you do not pay a higher amount of taxes, and the fact that there is no means test, you have what is clearly a system rife for causing deficits.

 

A lot of people thought slavery would last forever. It didn't.

A lot of people thought Jim Crow would last forever. It didn't.

A lot of people think entitlements will last forever...

 

Yes....eliminating segregation is "the same as" making old people poor.

(Just when you were worried the GOP might recover from its long bout of insanity. )

 

a lot of people think christianity will last forever

 

But Ayn Rand would smile down her benevolence upon us for our morality.

 

Making old people rich is impoverishing the rest of the country.

 

Rich? So every retiree is living in a Florida condo, with a cigarette boat and another house at Aspen???

BTW, you WILL return your Social Security checks uncashed when they start coming....uh....right???

 

Who wouldn't want to live in a country where kids took personal responsibility for their parents by sharing more of the costs of mom and dads retirement?

It is morally wrong to put in 40k in your lifetime and then expect society to pay for the other 235k in your living expenses over cushy 40 year retirement.

It is also morally wrong to expect government to provide outrageously expensive home care rather than force one of ingrate bastard children to step up to the plate an d take care of their own (*)(*)(*)(*) parents.

If there are old people living under bridges then their kids should be found and forced to take responsibility for them.

 

Entitlements, eh.

Cheap gas, suppressed food prices, subsidised house prices......

All the things that those who point 'over there' at the entitlement class they think they're not part of or haven't benefitted from.

Yeah, it'll be good to see those adjustments hit home, right enough, and hopefully shut up those fools among us who think entitlements and the removal thereof only apply to the very poor and lazy.

 

Ah, utopia, where every old person has kids to take care of them.

Ah, utopia, where everyone makes enough money to save for retirement, and saving $40k pays for yoru retirement and health care in your golden years.

Ah utopia. Where no one needs home care because their kids stay home and take care of them.

Ah utopia. Where hordes of the parents of ingrate bastard children live under freeways and beg at stoplights.

Sounds dreamy.

 

I do agree with raising the SS age, and perhaps reducing the payout as well as raising the income cap. What we have now is a program that was intended as "you didn't die soon enough" insurance now being used to allow seniors with middle class incomes the right to spend 20+ years hanging out on the golf course. That's stupid. I have no problem with taking people who have no way to continue working getting SS so they don't starve, but it should be run like an insurance program -- you get it if you need it, not because you hit a certain age and decided to stop working.

 

I agree. It is inane to be paying the dole to folks like Warren Buffet.

But conservatives are usually the first to demand their SS entitlement.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree. It is inane to be paying the dole to folks like Warren Buffet.

But conservatives are usually the first to demand their SS entitlement.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree. It is inane to be paying the dole to folks like Warren Buffet.

But conservatives are usually the first to demand their SS entitlement.

- - - Updated - - -

I agree. It is inane to be paying the dole to folks like Warren Buffet.

But conservatives are usually the first to demand their SS entitlement.

 

Cheap gas? Suppressed food prices? Where?

 

Republican ideas have a historical success rate of 0.00%, so THAT'S out!

 

I don't believe so if it were true the Bush administration would have touched them, both republican and democrats depend on entitlement welfare payments.

Secondly saying they are running out will be hard to sell by the Capitalist Republicans, when Socialist Democrats say it can easily be fixed through higher taxes on the wealthy.

Its just one institution started by FDR that will never go away in America save for a another World War. The only way to get people off welfare who are dependent on it, is by forcing them to work through a draft into fighting a war.

 

Well I'm not going to be forced to live in tax poverty so that some old people I never met don't have to.

 

Yesterday's America.

The one US conservatives want back so they can carry on being 'rugged individuals' who live The American Dream while ignoring the fact that everyone and their dog was subsidised to the hilt.

How else did you suppose a working Joe got five bedrooms, three bathrooms, some land, and a handful of gas guzzling behemoths in the fat driveway?

Everyone in the US is/was an entitlement queen.

Still, while you folks are busy focussing on the poor, lazy, and workshy to try and save three cents there'll be someone else sneaking around with their hand in your pocket that you're not seeing.

They wear suits, btw.

 

I'm sure we'll keep all these welfare payments though huh?

http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

Either you're for welfare or against it. Pick a side.

 

That's funny. I have zero debt and every dime I make that isn't taken by Government stays in my pocket unless I give it to someone else in exchange for a product I find more valuable than the money in my pocket.

So where this theft takes place I have no idea. I just see free exchange of goods for fair payment. Something Government refuses to give me.

I don't beleive that oil companies or anyone else has an obligation to not seek tax relief.

 

How much of the GDP can the entitlements eat up before economic collapse occurs?