The real problem in Washington, Holman Jenkins reminds us in a grim column in today's Wall Street Journal, is:
. . . the giant riverboat gamble that Washington can save the economy by doing what comes naturally—spending money carelessly, creating massive new entitlements without funding them, dishing out cheap credit to politically favored sectors, telling business people where and how to invest.
Current healthcare legislation working its way through the Congressional sausage factory is described by Jenkins as "the equivalent of climbing aboard a train about to plunge into a canyon and deciding what it really needs is a bomb on board," thanks to the expansion of coverage paid for largely with flimsy assumptions about "cost savings."
Jenkin's wishes that Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke would step up and try "to steer Team Obama off its suicide mission."
I would note that Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer recently observed, there is a "budgetary catastrophe looming for our children and grandchildren." Was the White House listening?
There are plenty of good, robust proposals for real reform ready for implementation, Jenkins reminds us:
The hopper is hardly barren of ideas, like raising the retirement age, enacting the Breaux Commission's Medicare proposals, instituting a flat tax and eliminating the tax distortions that every serious economist knows contributed to the housing bubble and the health-care bubble.
Anybody listening?
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