Mona Charen asks, “Are We Becoming European?” And then answers her own question with an ominous: “We’re there:”
Following the fiscal cliff melodrama, Senator Richard Shelby appeared on television to declare that we are becoming European. “We’re always wanting to spend and promise and spend and borrow but not cut. We’ve got to get real about this. We’re headed down the road that Europe’s already on.”
There’s no “heading” about it. We’re there. Prof. John J. DiIulio, writing in “National Affairs”, outlined the true size of American government. When state and local government expenditures are added to federal outlays, government spending as a share of GDP easily competes with European nations. In fact, per-capita government spending in the U.S. is higher than in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and our debt to GDP ratio is higher than most European states.
The United Kingdom, you say? For years, American Web surfers have seen plenty of articles of the infamously PC British school system run amok — and this headline in the Washington Post, “Boy, 6, suspended from Silver Spring school for pointing finger like a gun,” would be equally right at home across the pond. We should expect to see many more stories as America completes its transformation into the England of the 1970s.
And/or the England of George Orwell’s 1984, as Nancy Pelosi completes her transformation into Winston Smith: “Pelosi Photoshops Women into Photo.”
Apparently, she had to Photoshop the photo to see who was in it.
Update: Yet another American headline — “Illinois firefighters stand idle while man drowns” — which has its roots in the mother country.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member