Root Canal Politics

Democracy and Power:  104 Future Debt Burden

All democracies institute programs for current voters and shift the debt to future workers, even the unborn.  Social Security, Medicare, prescriptions drug benefits for seniors are prime examples in America.

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. – Voltaire (1764)

Tomas Friedman in the New York Times recognizes the Greek riots and British elections mark a significant change in western democracies.  Because the worldwide bond traders distrust the financial stability of many countries, Friedman foretells the impending generational friction between the young and the baby-boomers.  He blames the baby-boomers for wanting lower taxes and expanding government services.  Obliquely, Friedman criticizes government for printing money and permitting exotic financial instruments to create the elusion of wealth creation.

Finally, Friedman, a believer in government by the sophisticated, reluctantly and indirectly acknowledges the problem.  The problem is democracy and the scoundrels that seek office.  Is scoundrels too harsh?  Not with the likes of DeLay, Hasert, Reid and Pelosi using citizens’ money to buy votes.  The scoundrel problem exists in every democracy from Greece to America from Sweden to Italy.  Politicians buy votes today and put the debt on future generations.  This is not new, Voltaire described the problem and more recently Herbert Hoover said, Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.  

Friedman finally states the obvious:

After 65 years in which politics in the West was, mostly, about giving things away to voters, it’s now going to be, mostly, about taking things away. Goodbye Tooth Fairy politics, hello Root Canal politics.

Why is Friedman just awakening to this problem?  Where was Friedman when scholars warned about the public debt?  Belatedly, a believer in thoughtful and rational government, has reluctantly begun to seen the light.  When will he recognize that politics is all about power that must that must be constrained?  After all it has been approximately 200 years since James Madison said:  The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.