Students have rioted in England because college and university tuition is poised to take another leap upward. Higher education tuition as late as the 1990s was zero. To help balance the national budget the Conservative government of Prime Minister Cameron is slashing welfare subsidies and increasing the cost of government services. In short, financial reality is catching up to the British government and its people.
Welfare states around the world have been promising their citizens a range of benefits such as free or heavily subsidized college education, low-cost housing, “free” medical care, food subsidies, and generous retirement benefits. Unborn generations will have to pay exorbitant taxes in order to keep these goodies flowing today and in the near future because governments have been unwilling to tax their citizens for the cost of the welfare state. In short, politicians have perpetuated the welfare state (AKA as one big Ponzi scheme) because they have been dishonest. However, the day of reckoning has arrived in England, France, and other countries on the Continent, and in the United States.
The chairmen of President Obama’s fiscal commission have called for major changes in Social Security, domestic and military spending cuts, and tax hikes to put America’s fiscal house in order. All have merit except tax hikes. We need to restructure the federal government and put into place policies that promote the financial independence of the American people.
A broad outline of what specifically should be done rather than what is politically doable would begin with a recognition that the welfare state and the huge overseas military expenditures are not only financially unsustainable but violate every principle America is supposed to stand for—limited government, free enterprise and personal responsibility.
In addition, policymakers from the POTUS (that’s President of the United States) to every member of Congress regardless of political affiliation must vote unanimously to end deficit spending and phase-out Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Moreover, the Congress must order the Federal Reserve to stop the debasement of the dollar euphemistically known as “quantitative easing,” and the federal government must begin the withdrawal of U.S. troops from bases scattered all over the world as well as end the unjustified wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ASAP.
I will outline my plan to put the federal government’s fiscal house in order at the Middlsex County Tea Party meeting on December 2 at 8pm in Sayreville, New Jersey. More details will follow soon.