National Greatness Agenda

I really agree with David Brooks's op-ed that our country needs a national greatness agenda that "will ask Americans to live up to their best selves." The question is how? How do you get people to sacrifice their Social Security cost-of-living adjustments? How do you get people to give up their homeowners tax deduction, especially when the housing market is in terrible shape? How do we fix the short-term, medium-term and long-term deficit problems?

Here are the results of several polling questions conducted 11/11/2010-11/14/2010 that ask: is it more important to reduce spending in a certain program or more important to reduce the deficit?

• 79% want to prevent cuts in Medicare versus 19% that want to reduce the deficit.
• 69% want to prevent cuts in Medicaid versus 28% that want to reduce the deficit.
• 78% want to prevent cuts to Social Security versus 19% that want to reduce the deficit.
• 49% want to prevent cuts in defense spending versus 48% that want to reduce the deficit.
• 61% want to prevent cuts in aid to farmers versus 36% that want to reduce the deficit.
• 65% want to prevent cuts in college loans versus 34% that want to reduce the deficit.

Here are ways that Americans want to reduce the deficit:

• 61% want to reduce the deficit versus 37% that want to prevent cuts in funding for the arts.
• 55% want to reduce the deficit versus 43% that want to prevent cuts in welfare.

A CBS News poll conducted on 11/11/10 asked the following question: "Of all the problems facing this country today, which one do you most want the new Congress to concentrate on first when it begins in January?" The results:

The poll results speak for themselves: 4% of the total respondents want the new Congress to focus on the budget deficit and national debt. Only 6% of Republicans, 4% of Democrats and 4% of independents want the new Congress to focus on the budget deficit and national debt beginning in January.

These poll results are a joke. Americans do not want to reduce the deficit. They do not want to give up their current benefits for future generations. If they did, the poll results would be the exact opposite. Cutting funding for the arts and for welfare will save, at most, several billion dollars a year. 

As I wrote earlier today, the federal budget deficit this year is $1.3 trillion. A few billion dollars cut here and there will not solve the problem. The only way to solve the problem is with massive entitlement reform. If we could cut healthcare spending to the same levels that other countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom have, we could solve our budget deficit immediately. (Don't forget that those countries also provide universal healthcare to every person in their country, well the United States leaves 50 million uninsured.)

Both polls mentioned above were all conducted the week after the GOP won back the House of Representatives and won several seats in the Senate and claim that their mandate is to cut federal spending. Will the new Congress cut spending or will it do what the voters want to do? History tells us that the latter will happen.

So, David Brooks is absolutely correct when he says we need a national greatness agenda where current generations sacrifice for the future generations of our country. But will that happen? Not unless the current generations change their opinions dramatically.

On a related note, Michael Kinsley makes a very strong case for the baby boomer generation to make sacrifices in order to save country from the baby boomer generation in an article entitled "The Least We Can Do." The lede reads: "Self-absorbed, self-indulged, and self-loathing, the Baby Boom generation at last has the chance to step out of the so-called Greatest Generation’s historical shadow. Boomers may not have the opportunity to save the world, as their predecessors did, but they can still redeem themselves by saving the American economy from the fiscal mess that they, and their fathers and mothers, are leaving behind."