If you're having a bad day, you might want to wait a while to read "Riding for a Fall" by Peter G. Peterson in the new issue of Foreign Affairs. Here's the summary:
Three long-term trends are threatening to bankrupt America: the burgeoning costs of waging the war on terrorism, the U.S. economy's increasing reliance on foreign capital, and rapid aging throughout the developed world. Washington must understand that committing the United States to a broader global role while ignoring the financial costs of doing so is deeply irresponsible.
This is not a partisan slam on the policies of the Bush administration, but rather an attempted wake-up call to all policy-makers, Congress, and the American people to begin a frank dialogue about the problems we face, and to take responsible steps to remedy them..
The United States would greatly benefit from a serious and realistic discussion of the total cost of its long-term security agenda. It is a discussion that would lend welcome urgency to efforts to control the federal deficit, and, in particular, to reform ballooning entitlement programs. It is a discussion that would reconnect the domestic and foreign policy communities by requiring every policymaker to make a tradeoff: "How much am I willing to pay in tax hikes or benefit cuts in order to fund my security priorities?" Most of all, it is a discussion that ordinary Americans would welcome. People know in their personal and family lives that they cannot call for new sacrifices or promise new benefits without carefully considering the consequences. Why, they wonder, should things be any different in national life?
(via RealClearPolitics)
Posted by dan at August 23, 2004 10:12 PM