The biggest, boldest lie of every welfare state is that the goods and services it is providing to its citizens are "free." Those of us with brain cells and an aversion to lying know that this is not only untrue, but also impossible. Politicians are fond of throwing taxpayer dollars around like drunk Kennedy cousins on summer break in Monte Carlo in order to make voters love them.
Despite being full-throated advocates for "sustainability" when it comes to almost anything else, socialist welfare state types are committed to an economic system that simply cannot go on forever. In the immortal words of the late, great Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money." How long it is before "eventually" happens is entirely based on the habits of prevaricating, spendthrift politicians, obviously.
As Americans are painfully aware, even capitalist countries are plagued by the socialist tendencies of many of their politicians. A bloated welfare state is obviously not any red-blooded capitalist's ideal; that kind of bloat comes from politicians who still insist that socialism simply hasn't been done correctly yet.
Europe's various welfare state countries are often pointed to as dream scenarios by American leftists. Never mind that the comparisons are absurd from the get-go, Democrats have never let glaring illogic slow them down. One prominent European leader is now offering a painful truth: his welfare state has gotten too pricey. This is from a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece titled "A Politician Speaks the Unspeakable":
No, we don’t mean some racial or sexual crudity. Those obstacles in politics were breached long ago. We’re referring to something far more taboo in modern Western democracies: admitting that the size of the modern welfare state is no longer affordable.
Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, said at a Christian Democratic Union conference on Saturday that “the welfare state that we have today can no longer be financed with what we produce in the economy.”
Thank you, Chancellor, for this burst of candor. Mr. Merz is doing what no one else in the top ranks of Western politics seems willing to do, which is broach the fundamental dilemma of the modern West. Nations have built welfare and entitlement states that are so large they have outstripped the ability of slow-growing economies to pay for them. Yet because the entitlement cushion is so broad and reaches deep into the middle class, it has become nearly impossible to reform.
Merz is a center-right politician, so it's not odd that he believes this; it's just a surprise that he is saying it. As the article notes, it's tough to roll back entitlements when so many have gotten used to them. Even broaching the subject can be rife with third rail dangers.
Once politicians have gotten the people hooked on the taxpayer-funded entitlement drug, party lines disappear, especially here in the United States. Americans don't like to have things taken away from us, even if it's done in keeping with political principles. That's why we haven't seen a lot of Republican politicians fighting for any kind of fiscal sanity in Congress. Once any kind of recurring spending is shoehorned into a budget, it's practically locked in for life.
Germany has long been an industrial powerhouse. Its economy ranks behind only the United States and China. This isn't some boutique country like Sweden struggling with its "freebie" tab; it's one of the major players.
There is, of course, a lesson to be learned here for any country that has suffered with its leftists being in power for any length of time. The world is going to need a lot more curious and honest politicians for the lesson to sink in.
Click the button below to get the Morning Briefing emailed to you every weekday. Have your coffee with me, people. It's free and it supports conservative media!
Punditry on the Rocks: Because we're on the side that doesn't want to be angry all the time, Stephen Green and I like to share our thoughts once or twice a week with our VIP family on the soon-to-be-legendary live video chat "Five O'Clock Somewhere." What started off as a diversion to entertain our cherished VIPs for a few weeks during lockdown is coming up on its five-year anniversary. VodkaPundit and I would love to have more people join us in our quest to prove that insightful political commentary can, in fact, be a lot of fun. You can punch your ticket to the virtual party bus by subscribing here and using the promo code FIGHT to receive a welcome discount of 60%.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member