David Brooks: Democrats unwilling to ask voters to pay for popular programs

Democrats seem to believe that most Americans want to preserve the 20th-century welfare state programs. But they are unwilling to ask voters to pay for them, and they are unwilling to describe the tax increases that would be required to cover their exploding future costs.

Raising taxes on the rich will not do it. There aren’t enough rich people to generate the tens of trillions of dollars required to pay for Medicare, let alone all the other programs. Democrats, thus, face a fundamental choice. They can either reverse President Obama’s no-new-middle-class-taxes pledge, or they can learn to live with Paul Ryan’s version of government.

From The Ryan Journey

Just looking at the numbers and Brooks is right. You need to undo all the Bush tax cuts. You need to undo all the new Bush spending increases to the military and you need to do a full accounting of medicare/medicaid costs and make realistic decisions of what the the programs should not pay for.

By Stable Genius

I am the very model of a Stable Genius Liberal.