7. Focus on the predators, not the prey
As part of focusing on real reforms, Congress should address the sole source of the deficit projections that are used to terrify everyone. Instead of chopping away at the pillars of family security -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- fix our broken health care system. If we spent per capita what other industrialized countries spend on health care (while getting better public health results), we would right now be projecting surpluses as far as the eye can see. The good news is that costs haven't been rising as fast as expected. Understanding how to build on what is working is a sensible next step. For savings, take on the culprits -- the powerful drug and insurance company lobbies, the private hospital complexes that profit from driving our health care costs up.
In any case, "shared sacrifice" is for suckers. It is neither just nor sensible to demand sacrifices be shared by the predator and the prey. It doesn't make sense to ask everyone to sacrifice when the top 1 percent has captured 93 percent of the country's income growth as it did in 2010. It makes no sense to cut spending on everything when long-term deficits are driven by one thing -- our broken health care system. And it makes no sense to cut everything without being clear about what we need to build.
At the end of World War II, our debt burden was about 125 percent of GDP -- far higher than it is now. Yet our leaders were focused on how to put the GIs back to work and avoid a return to the Depression. So they enacted the GI bill to educate a generation. They subsidized housing and built the suburbs. They converted wartime industries to peacetime development. They launched the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and create markets. They built the interstate highway system to pave way for a national market. They fought over deficits and budgets, but they did what needed to be done. They thought and acted boldly. And they built the first broad middle class in the world's history that made America exceptional.
They fixed the economy. They generally ran deficits and added to the nominal debt. But the economy grew far faster and by 1980, the debt was down to below 40 percent of GDP and not a concern. They are remembered as the great generation. We might learn a thing or two from them.
