Picnicking on railroad tracks? Not dangerous. Most of the time the tracks are free. Take out the picnic basket and pass the chips. Glug down a few drinks.
The tracks are safe when there’s no train.
After the train? Well, you’re dead. Not dangerous then, either.
Only in the moments while the train blares down on you is it actually dangerous.
This is modern politics. Our politicians have set us to party on the tracks, heedless of dangers. Increasing deficits? Mounting debt? Those are future problems!
That’s what politicians have been saying, in effect, for decades.
Irresponsible? Yes. So what else is new?
Republicans are lambasting Democrats for not taking deficits and debt seriously. But how serious are Republicans, really? Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has put forward what he calls a “road map” to solvency. He’s taking into consideration “entitlement” as well as “discretionary” spending; he’s elaborated a set of spending cuts, program cuts, as well as a tax abolition and a new business consumption tax that all together zero out the deficit and balance the budget . . . by 2063.
So, have Republicans jumped onto his cause? No. They are, with the exception of nine co-sponsors, avoiding him as if he were the onrushing train.
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calls Ryan’s Roadmap “a test” and says, “right now the Republican Party is failing it.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.