A Brief Spasm Of Anglophilia

Because they are willing to make the hard choices.

Perhaps for similar reasons, nobody is talking about austerity in America. On the contrary, Republicans are still gunning for tax cuts, and Democrats are still advocating higher spending. Almost nobody—not Paul Krugman, not Newt Gingrich—talks enthusiastically about budget cuts. Instead, our politicians use euphemisms about "eliminating waste" or "making government more efficient," as if no one had ever thought of doing that before.

Well, to be honest, no one has taken any interest in actually making government more efficient or in really eliminating waste.  Because that would be the end of earmarks and a whole raft of graft.

But we do have a serious spending problem.  Our government spends too much.  It has made promises that are far too generous in the out years.  The fiscal debacle that I have been predicting for decades is upon us.

We face the choice of making hard decisions and surviving, or simply clinging to the hope that "things will all work out" and pile driving our country into fiscal ruin.

The former is easier to experience than the latter.  Unfortunately, the latter is easier to achieve than the former.