In response to Politco’s question — whether Obama or the GOP is really serious about cutting government spending — Cato’s Roger Pilon offers this excellent response:
With uncontrolled deficits well into the future and a debt exceeding $14 trillion, for Obama to propose saving only $40 billion per year in discretionary spending over the next five years, while ?investing? in pie-in-the-sky things like high-speed rail, wind farms, environmentally destructive ethanol, and the like, is worse than unserious ? it?s an insult to our intelligence. Like Obama, many Republicans too treat military spending, among other things, as sacrosanct, but at least they?re proposing more serious budget cuts.
The deeper problem, of course, is systemic. Socialism, a large dose of which we have in America today, brings out the very worst in people. In the name of collective responsibility, it saps and then destroys individual responsibility, leading to a war of all against all. No one wants ?his? entitlement cut for fear that his neighbor might profit at his expense ? because, after all, ?we?re all in this together.? Suspicion and envy are the order of the day. Meanwhile, dreamers like Obama (at least that?s his pose), who promote our collective drift, either can?t or won?t grasp the hard reality until it crashes down upon them, and us, as it is doing now in several of our states and in Europe. For the ?hard-hearted? realists among us, November 2012 can?t come soon enough.
