Rod Dreher

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Over The Cliff

By Rod Dreher • January 1, 2013, 12:19 AM

David Brooks delivers the depressing news:

Whom should we blame for this? Again, we should not blame Obama and Boehner. In their different ways, they and a number of other people in the Congress are trying to find a politically palatable way to deal with these hard issues. They got what conditions allowed.

Ultimately, we should blame the American voters. The average Medicare couple pays $109,000 into the program and gets $343,000 in benefits out, according to the Urban Institute. This is $234,000 in free money. Many voters have decided they like spending a lot on themselves and pushing costs onto their children and grandchildren. They have decided they like borrowing up to $1 trillion a year for tax credits, disability payments, defense contracts and the rest. They have found that the original Keynesian rationale for these deficits provides a perfect cover for permanent deficit-living. They have made it clear that they will destroy any politician who tries to stop them from cost-shifting in this way.

Most members of Congress are responding efficiently to the popular will. A large number of reactionary Democrats reject any measure to touch Medicare or other entitlement programs. A large number of impotent Republicans talk about reducing the debt, but are incapable of forging a deal that balances tax increases with spending cuts.

The events of the past few weeks demonstrate that these political pressures overwhelm the few realists looking for a more ambitious bargain. The country either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the burdens we are placing on our children. No coalition of leaders has successfully confronted the voters, and made them heedful of the ruin they are bringing upon the nation.

Doesn’t care, and doesn’t care to know. This is so damn depressing.

There is the moral of all human tales;

‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,

First Freedom, and then Glory — when that fails,

Wealth, vice, corruption — barbarism at last.

– Byron, ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage’

Happy New Year all the same.

Posted in Decline and Fall. Tagged Byron, Childe Harold, fiscal cliff.

58 Responses to Over The Cliff

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Rick says:

January 1, 2013 at 11:05 pm

Thomas, I think the parable applies to people working in the service of the Lord, above all to priests and bishops. Those who use His gifts well, fruitfully, will be given more responsibility, while those who squander His gifts will be sidelined and demoted.

I just thought it humorous how closely the banker’s motto echoes Matthew 13:12.

I agree with you though that the Gospel clearly calls for care of the poor and warns of the dangers and responsibilities of wealth. I am for a strong social safety net, and I find the growing concentration of wealth troubling and a threat to a free society.

On the other hand, I do think a lot of Medicare spending is not really helping the poor or even the sick. I think it is costly intervention at the end of life, burdensome to the patient, burdensome to the patient’s family, often ineffective at lengthening life, but very lucrative to health care providers. And I am all for slashing this futile medical spending and replacing it with dignified hospice care — for the sake of our budget deficit, and for the dignity of those at the end of life.
M_Young says:

January 2, 2013 at 1:01 am

” This is not a function of the greatness of our system – we do have infant mortality rates close to Haiti’s. ”

Really guys, this is the internet age, you just can’t get away with ‘porkies’ (as your idols, the NHS having Brits would say). Haiti’s infant mortality rates are almost 10 times those of the United States.
JonF says:

January 2, 2013 at 6:22 am

Re: Brooks is saying that the system as a whole is paying out more than it takes in.

But that’s not the fault of us individual citizens, whom Brooks is blaming. That’s the fault of the politicians for not funding the system better, and even more importantly for not structuring the system better (i.e., using, capitation rather than fee for service, and negotiating those drug prices down).
Glaivester says:

January 2, 2013 at 9:04 am

JonF:

But that’s not the fault of us individual citizens, whom Brooks is blaming. That’s the fault of the politicians for not funding the system better,

Brooks’ point is that it’s citizens’ collective (not individual) fault, because we don’t want to do the things necessary to fund the system better or to reduce the amount we take from it. In short, citizens want “reform” in the abstract, but not to actually experience any effects of reform themselves.
Thomas Andrews says:

January 2, 2013 at 10:00 am

Rick,
Thank you – that would certainly make sense. Of course, Matthew was not writing at a time when bishops and other clergy were an established part of Christian reality.
Which is one of the difficulties, at least for me, in interpreting parables. There have been one or two minor changes in the last few thousand years and our culture, such as it is, is not that of any of the cultures addressed in the Bible. I could see that meaning, though – to have a gift or ability and not to use it is a betrayal in a real sense.

Taking care of those weaker than ourselves is, however, perfectly clear. So clear that I never cease to be amazed at the viciousness and outright glee with which so many people proclaim themselves Christians with one fork of their tongue and demand we cast the elderly, the orphaned, the widowed, the ill aside with the other. Note, I did not limit ‘Christian’ to only one group. Yes, this is an aspect of the culture wars, but I don’t know what’s worse – the bad will so many conservative Christians show or the willing disregard so many of us liberal Christians show. I’ve actually heard members of my church excuse their second BMW 700 series in the driveway by saying “even Jesus said we’d always have the poor with us”.

Given that virtually everyone agrees that the military health insurance system works well and everyone except conservative Christian politicians (Gov. Jindal comes to mind) agrees that hospice care is ideal for those whose sands have all but run out, I just don’t understand our resistance to common sense.

Raising the income cap on Social Security would solve the solvency problem (not plundering the trust would help, too, but that’s one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on).
Lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare enrollment, as was originally planned back when I was in graduate school, would solve most problems. Permitting the Medicare administration to bargain as capitalists would solve the rest. Not permitting any negotiations on pharmaceuticals was a direct attempt to kill the program.
Hospice care and living wills would put an end to much of the suffering of the last weeks and months of an elderly person’s life.
We must make such voluntary, though. Germany showed us what happens otherwise, back in the 1930s.
No, ‘death panels’ were nothing but a lie. Strong protections must be explicit, though or we’ll eventually have someone in charge who decides otherwise. There’s always a John Yoo to be found when one needs him.

Medicaid needs to be taken out of the hands of the local states. To call oneself a pro-life Christian and then deny health care to the ill, the orphaned, the weak, the elderly, the widowed as has been done by several Republican governors,all of whom bang the drum constantly about what glorious, conservative Christians they are, is beyond my grasp. It’s also a violation of Christ’s direct demands upon us.
No need to ‘interpret’ those statements. They’re not parables, they’re clear rules.
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

January 2, 2013 at 10:18 am

But that’s not the fault of us individual citizens, whom Brooks is blaming. That’s the fault of the politicians for not funding the system better,…

I think Brooks is ultimately saying that the responsibility for bad politicians rests with the voters who put them there.

This is sort of true, but oversimplified as gerrymandering by politicians squelches voter dissent and allows for greater polarization.
Franklin Evans says:

January 2, 2013 at 12:26 pm

“There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
– attributed to Mark Twain.

Why anyone anymore gives any trust to how statistics are presented in the media is egregiously ridiculous. Confirmation bias is the half of it.

“He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”

– “The American President”, by Aaron Sorkin

This is the benchmark for the failure of American voters: Did you vote from fear, or did you vote from actual knowledge of the facts and details? I’ve got $100 that says that the vast majority of people, if backed into a corner and given no room to prevaricate, will answer the former.
JonF says:

January 2, 2013 at 7:06 pm

MH and Glaivester (and aren’t you two odd bedfellows?) , you have a valid point and one I agree with. I’m not sure it was Brooks’ point though. I got a definite sense he was just being a scold, lecturing the little people for not being willing to live on cat food and die quickly without healthcare when they get old.