Let’s face it: These last few elections weren’t contests over conflicting policy visions. Instead, each party did little more than tell voters that they aren’t as awful as the other party. Pointing that out is OK but doing so isn’t a substantive agenda. Republicans, for instance, were all about how Democrats created inflation and how inflation was terrible for the American people. But Republicans themselves offered no plan to tame inflation. Where are the GOP’s plans to control spending? Such control is necessary at the very least for the government to meet its debt-servicing obligations—which are rising with interest rates—without fueling inflation further.
Meanwhile, Democrats have spent the last campaign freaking people out that Republicans will cut Social Security. Whether that’s true or not, Americans should be worried about the Democrats’ do-nothing policy. Indeed, under the current policy, the Social Security trust fund runs dry by 2034 and benefits will be automatically cut by at least 25 percent, leaving little room to shelter the most vulnerable seniors who truly depend on it for most of their retirement income. This inevitable scenario will happen even sooner now that inflation has jacked up benefits. In practice, by doing nothing, Democrats too want to cut benefits.
Yet you didn’t hear the Republicans make that point during the campaign. Nor did they make the case for reforming the program before its impending insolvency. They were completely silent on the need to reduce government debt policies. I understand that these are unpleasant topics of conversation—it is the proverbial “root canal” of policy, as the late Jack Kemp liked to say. But ignoring these realities will not change them.
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