Greece is in trouble precisely because its government has promised every citizen not just a welfare state, but a gravy train state. The government is incapable of paying for everything it has promised. This is the fate the US faces. You can't just keep relying on the government to cater to your every need, or wish, or whim. That's not a function government is capable of performing. We in the US simply can't afford any more government. And "taxing the rich" is no answer. Even "the rich" don't have enough money to fund this level of government. If we become Greece, it will because of the free-spending government of the last 10 years. We have too much government, not too little.

And it's a mistake to see Germany as a utopia. Germany's economy carries a lot of dead weight. Many former East Germans are given a government pension to stay home, since they have no capability to do real productive work. On top of that, all someone needs to do is work a couple months out of the year and they are guaranteed an almost limitless amount of unemployment insurance. People aren't allowed to have the equivalent of a 401(k) or IRA; they are entirely dependent on a government pension, and the terms of that pension can change in a heartbeat if the Bundestag decides they should. Many people working today are afraid that they will be denied a comfortable retirement because of the money Germany is dumping into the EU today. And on top of that, taxes are so high in Germany that when the cost of taxes at all stages in the economy is taken into account, the average German has discretionary use of only about twelve cents of every Euro he makes.

It's also important to remember that the more the US becomes like Europe, the less it becomes the world's alternative to the old nations. The world needs that alternative. Our relatively freer nation is held up as an example all over the world of the fact that it's not necessary for government to totally order and administer people's lives. The less of a contrast we offer, the less of a conscience we will be for other nations, and the more the world will devolve into a gray social drabness which at best will lead to generations of stagnation; at worst, a new dark age.

"The Republicans have manufactured a debt crisis..."

That's as far as I need to read.

And with this piece we see why Jordan lost this election bid -- out of touch, partisan and extremely shallow thinking.

Rather than "this election" it should say "his"...but to quote LZ, the song remains the same.

Look to Europe? The US taxpayer has been subsidizing the European Social State since the Marshall plan. Were European States to pay the full cost of security there would be no social state to look towards. Its the false promises of the savior state that have made this nation complacent, passive and entitled. Save the partisan rhetoric and the disengenious headlines.

At seven words BlueLight has just set a new personal reading record. Who says No Child Left Behind can't work?

A disturbing number of our fellow Americans embrace the Republicans' vision of America as an authoritarian banana republic. My age and my health unfortunately mean emigration is not an option for me. : (

Republicans have "manufactured" the debt crisis?

No, the debt crisis has been "manufactured" by those who in both parties who gave us the bank and auto bailouts, the porkulus package, a new war in Libya and the vast new health care entitlement.

Wake up and smell the coffee, folks. WE'RE BROKE!

I think Mr. Royer raises a very valid point--the bottomline of the current debt debate is what kind of country we want to be. This question is as old as our republic and has never been and never will be finally answered.

Every decade and every generation answers it for itself. I believe with Mr. Royer that "social capitalism" makes the most sense for the long run prosperity and peace of our country.

This approach tempers the driving, productive, innovative greed of capitalism with governmental interventions that limit and balance that greed with humane social programs that ensure a healthy, more fair, and productive society.

This approach also results in investments in public infrastructure that fuel a successful capitalist economy. Think about such things as public education, the interstate highway system, and the internet.

The radical anarchists currently dominating the Republican Party would willingly destroy all of this in pursuit of a dead-end Randian ideology of individual greed trumping all.

The challenge of the 2012 election is to say a definitive "no" to their destructive nihilism that threatens to drive our society into the ditch of mediocrity.

"[W]e can expand Medicare to cover every American and remove the insurance companies from the equation — saving the program because of the addition of young and healthy taxpayers."

That may have been true about 40 years ago. But demographically, given the aging baby-boomer bubble, it is impossible today. Social welfare programs, like Medicare and Social Security, like Ponzi schemes, work great so long as there are lots of folks on the bottom paying in to support the few at the top. But now, the demographic pyramid is inverted, and the game is up.

This is a dialogue we need to have with ourselves. The debt crisis is real and not the work of either political party. It is the work of both parties and of a society which has made demands beyond its ability to pay. The financial meltdown was the short-term triggering event.

We do need to decide what the public sector can and should finance and
how it will pay for its obligations. Looking at the long-term debt problem, one fact is inescapable: As one commenter has mentioned, demographics have brought us to a place where we no longer can finance Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid without changing the formulae to give them long term stability. They are the largest single source of
red ink. Defense spendng must be cut. General tax reform must scrub the code (at state as well as at federal level) of loopholes and subsidies which cut a hole in the public revenue base while hindering economic growth.

The present crisis can help trigger serious action on these issues which would not otherwise be considered. Really time for us to figure things out.

What I read, here and elsewhere, is that the responsible, public spirited thing to do is to borrow some more money to pay the interest on money we have already borrowed . Furthermore I have absorbed the message that it is caddish and unseemly to quibble about this action. It may well be true that in the very short term borrowing more money to pay interest on money we already owe is tactically unavoidable but it also seems that those few who question this strategy have a good point; we can't keep this up forever and almost without doubt the problem will be worse next year than it is now.

manufactured a debt crisis? you mean its just a fabrication? we don't really have a problem? wow, the reason the left is rapidly losing credibility is the insane belief, espoused by people like ex Enron council Paul Krugman, that if the GOP just went away, everything would be fine. its just a dream.

I agree with "g-dub" in that the US taxpayer needs to stop subsidizing the citizens of overseas countries where we have bases. Last years' debt commission recommended a 30% cut, I'd go to at least 50%. The forces would be overrun within days, hardly a deterrent. "AW" needs to reach back another decade to find the greatest portion of the debt explosion. A surplus in 2000, the first since the Nixon administration (1969). Frittered away with 2 wars, off-budget but costs estimated at $4 trillion + future health care costs, 3 tax cuts benefiting mostly the rich people like those (no surprise) in Congress, a prescription drug benefit program, and No Child Left Behind, all unfunded. The new Rs disavowed "pay-as-you-go," as they don't believe that tax cuts should be offset. Funny, our economy should've took off by 2008 following the raft of tax cuts, if one's to believe these folks. They blocked the Congressional formation of a debt reduction committee, as that would entail binding recommendations. The subsequent commission that the President formed didn't have that restriction, and both parties ignored its recommendations. I would've liked to have seen these recommendations be the trigger for the forthcoming debt committee, that is, if the committee doesn't agree to something by 11/23/11, its recommendations go into place. But, neither side has the guts. Until they do, or until voters have the guts to vote their incumbents out of office, to quote "beaky," "it's just a dream" (of things truly changing for the better).