Missing the Debt - By Yuval Levin - The Corner - National Review Online: "In the short-term debate we are now engaged in, we are fighting about ways to reduce deficits with lower discretionary spending or higher taxes—basically using non-health spending to offset some of the growth in health spending in the hope of keeping overall deficits and debt under control for a little while longer. But in the medium and long term, there is no hope whatsoever of doing this. It is absolutely impossible to raise taxes fast enough or high enough to keep up with this growth, and while other entitlement and discretionary cuts can buy a little time there is really nothing we could do on that front that would effectively avert disaster, both for the health-entitlement programs and for the economy. As President Obama himself said earlier this month, “If you look at the numbers, then Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up.”
Unfortunately, however, the president is not willing to do anything about this. The Medicare reforms he was reportedly willing to consider—raising the Medicare retirement age by two years, employing yet more price controls, a little more means testing—just don’t get anywhere near the real problem."
You don't have a clue what's going on with the budget debates unless you read this...
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