Editorial from yesterday's Chicago Tribune ...
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You know them by their righteousness:
• The politicians on this flank say: It's natural for government to grow when people's needs grow. If only we raise more tax revenue, we can afford to be the truly great society. And why do you over there frighten citizens with your talk of "reforming" their entitlement programs? If we keep spending now to ease our pain and buy more economic growth, then we can address our deficits and debt.
• The politicians on the other flank say: Without your drunken spending spree, there would be no hangover, no need for austerity. More borrowing would be immoral: Two generations of young taxpayers already are doomed to decades of paying off debts created by their parents and grandparents. Yet you over there want more stimulus programs? Why, because the last ones worked so well?
Like the fence straddling centrist that I am, I gotta agree with this one.Whatever the policy answer for this country, Europe ought to be an urgent, five-alarm warning of what happens when debts blithely rise and lenders, fearing default, get frightened. Europe's crisis has devolved into the austerity-versus-spending battle in which no economic flower can bloom. Is that the future we Americans want to import? And if not, then why don't our leaders act while they still can shape our fate?
