This is why a crash and bankruptcy is the only logical course for State Budgets in NY, NJ, CA, etc... and entitlement spending.
EVERYONE believes they are “entitled” - not a single person will be convinced they should receive less. The argument we hear again and again is “I worked hard for my Gov’t pension, health care, etc..., and it is MINE.”
There can be no compromise on this issue, so the end game will be to take the present system to collapse.
There can be no compromise on this issue, so the end game will be to take the present system to collapse.
I just posted this exact observation before reading further downthread.
You are right that, at this point of entrenchment, there probably is no functional way to change things except for collapse to come and then start over. However we get there, the answer is shifting away from entitlements altogether --- no publicly funded retirement plans, etc.
I guess we'll always have to have a certain level of public welfare benefits for the truly poor (though, honestly, if Liberals had not insisted on outsourcing our individual responsibility to help the poor to the faceless bureaucracy, Americans' natural generousity would provide a high level of targeted, accountable private charity to the needy). But public pensions and so on: HELL NO. They simply are not sustainable.
Name the ONE THING that is totally amenable to being provided by the private sector, subject to market forces, but which ties down vast, vast amounts of tax payer dollars: public education.