No, it won’t.
This is what I keep hammering on here at FR: The numbers are such that we’re passing (or have just passed) the point of no fiscal return without real, substantial pain.
The GOP has been buying into this idiotic meme that we can “grow our way out of our deficits” for years - over a decade now. A decade ago, it might have been possible if the GOP had manned up and made the right cuts and the right trade policy changes.
Now, the spending numbers are overwhelming the economy’s ability to generate growth (and therefore new tax revenue).
Ryan’s spending plan is a farce - it takes far too long to get to a state where we have only a $400B deficit - never a balanced budget. If we want to turn this around and avoid a EU-style implosion, we need to be talking about cutting at least $500B in real spending cuts this year, next year and the year after that. The GOP stupidly says “no defense cuts,” when the DOD budget is bloated beyond it’s mission, the DNC says “no entitlement cuts” when there’s at least $60B of fraud in Medicare alone per year, and who knows how much other fraud.
The only way to get out of the situation we’re in now is to tell the truth: There will be pain. Much as happened in Iceland, someone needs to have the balls to come forward and say “We’re not going to backstop the bankers. Banks will fail.”
Romney will do none of these things. He’ll be an improvement over the village idiot we have in office now, but these milquetoast Ivy League dandies who the GOP keeps running for office never have the balls to tell people “There will be real cuts. There will be pain. In the end, to clean up this mess, some people who have been living off the taxpayer are going to go broke.”
Well stated post. Of course I happen to agree with your analysis, but I also enjoyed your description. It’s useful for me to explain the points to others.
Well said.
All indications is it’s going to be a President Romney, but the GOP celebration is going to be short lived. Reality is coming and the election isn’t going to change that
We could have let the banks fail in 2008 and been in a roaring recovery by now. Except for two problems: McCain and Obama (and their enablers). The cost of bank failure would have been trillions, but instead we watched Obama spend trillions digging union made holes. Now the tab is higher and the economy is weaker.
This is not “growing our way” out of the deficit. This is “selling our Oil and using our Natural Gas” to pay off the debt. Then comes the hard work of dismantling 100 years of the Progressive Agenda to get us back to our Founding Principles. That means dismantling both the Democrat and Republican establishments because they are all Progressives of one temperature or another. But none of this will happen if We The People decide that our job is done.
The world does not care about Honey Boo Boo and the idiot society that makes such a show possible, let alone profitable. The rest of the world looks at us, and because they see how easy we have things, wants to steal some part of it. And they have found legal ways to do it, and laugh at us while they do so.
And Americans are too stupid to realize that decisions have consequences. We are like little kids that stick their fingers in their ears and yell so they cannot hear the adult voice in the room. The only hopeful part of this is that we know that chaos precedes the Second Coming. In the mean time, keep your powder dry, my friends.
There is no way out of this without serious cuts. SS will be cut. Medicare will be cut. Defense budget and pensions will cut. The space program will need to be cut. Places like northern Virgina and DC will see a collapse in property values and employment unprecedented.
That will (not might, will) mean great societal upheaval. Up to and including massive civil unrest and the nation breaking apart. There is no money. The Empire is broke, and we need to decide on how to transition to the next phase.