Recently I've had a number of political conversations with people who follow this blog, Twitter followers, but mostly my local friends. While we are all sensitive to the problems of Federal budgets and deficits, I have noticed a clear bias for people to take one view or the other with regard to cause and effect. In general, the right-leaning folks tend to think that ever-increasing cost in Medicare is the main culprit in driving up our debt. Left-leaning folks tend to believe that unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a prescription drug benefit that was unfunded, plus multiple rounds of renewals on the Bush Tax cuts - in a time of record low taxes - are the culprit.
This is usually where we agree to disagree - that our worldview dictates one perspective or the other. But is that really sufficient? I think not.
Yes, all the spending items above,left and right, drive the deficit. But is it really the case that culprits for our deficits on both the left and right are equally culpable? Again, I think not.
A friend of mine often says something like this, "It does not matter how critical a government program is (he usually is referring to Medicare), if we can't afford it, we can't let it continue". I paraphrase, but you get the idea. As he would put it; Medicare, no matter how moral, or critical, or structured is simply too big and too expensive and should be phased out in the name of fiscal sanity.
Other right-leaning friends are similarly disposed and tend not to think of the sins of the right (2 wars, prescription drug benefit, and Bush tax cuts) as culpable.
Simply put, the costs of these programs, left and right, both drive significant debt. But are they identically "unaffordable"?
It's not a Hobsonian choice. One is clearly better for the common good than the other.
Let's use an example from real life - however nutty it will sound. Let's say my wife and I decide our household budget cannot afford a trip around the world. Then it occurs to us that if we don't eat for 4 months, we can afford the trip.
That is an equivalent analogy to right-leaning rationales for ending Medicare. It's too expensive, kill it, no matter the outcome. On the other hand a small rise in taxes for the rich, never. Ever.
There are other options of course, we could reform Medicare to slow down the cost escalations, we could end unfunded wars, we could raise taxes on those most able to pay by allowing most of the Bush tax cuts to expire as planned at the end of 2012. We could do all those things and keep Medicare helping the elderly have medical care (something they did not have before Medicare) or we could let the rich keep getting richer.
It's really very simple when framed in this (true) light. Given the choice of a 4-5% tax increase on the wealthy, or millions of seniors eventually being without adequate (or any) healthcare - that's an easy choice and therefore the problems are not equivalent culprits - which means the solutions are also not equally good or bad.
That means the problem is not bi-partisan.
If your worldview dictates that you believe it your right to keep the largest percentage possible of what you make, define the terms "right" and "possible" in a context wherein keeping too much means millions die from lack of medical coverage.
