Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Entitlements

I'm a broken record on this subject and some days I think I'm one of those crazy people who is convinced he sees something so utterly obvious and can't understand why everyone else doesn't see it too. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it isn't obvious, or maybe it's so obvious that no one else bothers to point it out.

The population is getting older. While the "let them eat cat food" crowd at the Washington Post and the general center right "pain caucus" of "serious Democrats" and their fellow travellers see this as a looming fiscal crisis which necessitates drastic cuts to government services for those elderly people, in truth eventually the opposite will happen. Old people vote. They vote for politicians who support public services they like. They're perfect for appearing as sympathetic victims on local news making politicians look bad when things don't go as they should. And there are going to be more of them. Many many more of them. In twenty years time we won't be talking about how we need to cut Social Security. Instead politicians will be falling all over themselves to double the payments and to promise new luxury retirement homes for all.

The only question is how this will be done. Will the Republicans be in charge and waste immense amounts of money by giving it all to Big Pharma or will it be done more sensibly?