If the recent debate over healthcare has done anything, it’s finally brought to the forefront of American consciousness that, like it or not, the United States is on a slow and steady path toward socialism-lite. Essentially, a “Europeanization” of America.
Interestingly, Barack Obama and his policies are not solely responsible for this trend. This drift has been occuring for some time. However, there is little doubt his efforts are accelerating it. From his unguarded comment during the Presidential campaign that it was “time to spread the wealth around” to his stubborn and headlong drive toward a full nationalization of health care, we are seeing in plain sight that elections, indeed, do have their consequences.
In the end, though, if Americans are looking for the culprit driving America inexorably toward socialist governance and greater government involvement in our lives, they need look no further than the mirror. Unlike previous generations of Americans, the post WWII baby boom generations have over borrowed, over spent, over consumed, over eaten, and lived with such excess in the pursuit of an increasingly illusive American consumer dream such that there isn’t an enterprise in existence large enough to bail them out.
Or is there? With a national debt now at almost $13 trillion and rising, the federal government is certainly doing its level best to borrow and bankroll the spending habits of a population that is so far overextended in the way of a debt-driven lifestyle, there is no turning back. Our solutions to the crisis of overspending? Spend even more. Stimulus packages, jobs bills, bank bailouts, guaranteed health care, and foreclosure protection for those who bought way beyond their means.
Reducing the U.S.’s annual borrowing and long term debt requires something that most recent generations of Americans no longer carry in their lexicon, the word “sacrifice.” And because there is little to no willingness to sacrifice on a national or personal level, the sacrifice that’s coming, whether we like it or not, will involve a collective ceding of rights and control over basic elements of our lives, a higher tax burden, less purchasing power, the nationalization of basic services like health care, and just like our friends in Europe – inevitably a lower standard of living.
Welcome to the beginning of the decline of America as we know it.
