This is all bad news, but it is not a crisis. If we go over the cliff, it simply means the economy will grow a bit slower and politicians will spend a bit more money. And the sequester actually would be (modest) good news, since it means the burden of government spending would be “only” $2 trillion higher 10 years from now, rather than $2.1 trillion higher. …

The real crisis is the ticking time bomb of entitlement programs and the welfare state.

This bomb won’t explode this year or next year. It may not even explode for another 20 years. But at some point America will experience a Greek-style fiscal collapse if these programs are not reformed.

It’s a simple matter of math due to an aging population. According to both the Bank for International Settlements and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the future burden of US spending will climb so high that we’ll be in worse shape than Europe’s welfare states.