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Jewish World Review
Nov. 14, 2012/ 29 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773
U.S. should follow the Swedish path
By
Jay Ambrose
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It would be nice to think this country could continue to amount to something, to assume we have a future despite the recent presidential election, but if nothing much gets done to reverse policies, forget it. Instead of suffering, move to Sweden. — That country is looking at a promising economic future while ours has reason to fear disaster. Signals include jumps in the use of Medicaid and food stamps, the dramatic loss in middle class income during a supposed recovery, multi-millions who still cannot find jobs and four more years of a president who worked mightily and effectively if not intentionally to give us this state of affairs. Considering Sweden's reputation as one of the foremost welfare states in the world, it may come as a surprise to some to learn that while the United States has been adorning itself with European-style, semi-socialist garb, Sweden has been shedding that clothing. It has reformed old-age pensions, cut taxes, said hallelujah to property rights, deregulated left and right, reduced spending, balanced budgets and is thriving as a result. Now, as an unblushing lover of America, I am not seriously suggesting that anyone skedaddle from spacious skies and purple mountains majesty even if red ink is beginning to reach that high. I am hoping that wiser and more politically adept Republicans might be able to stymie some of the worst of President Barack Obama's misbegotten purposes and that long-term rectification of our turn toward self-destruction can win bipartisan support. There has, of course, been some terribly bad news. The presidential election indicates that this country is now more center-left than center-right. We've reaffirmed that malicious campaign ads can sway millions while governmental giveaways buy votes. The regulatory mishmash known as Obamacare seems here to stay. It is already being cited along with anti-coal enthusiasm as a reason for layoffs that will crush some of the most disadvantaged among us even as the confused left says compassion has won the day. The good news is that Republican House Speaker John Boehner has indicated willingness to compromise to avoid an automatic event at the turn of the year: an immediate raise in taxes and large cuts that could invite the recession back for a disastrous visit. He naturally enough wants long-term restructuring of entitlements -- there is absolutely no other way to solve the debt crisis -- and is agreeable to tax reform that will entail hikes for some. It seems to me at least possible that Obama and the Democrats will go along with such terms, though it's always hard to depart from demagoguery that has served one's political ends remarkably well. The pretense has been that something important will be achieved by little more than the rescinding of Bush-era tax reductions on individuals making over $200,000 a year and couples making over $250,000. That would hurt hiring while doing next to nothing to lower deficits, and if you don't address entitlements constituting 66 percent of the budget, you've just told your country to go burn in Hades. I do think Democrats may opt for reason. And I believe still more serious reform seems possible as it becomes ever clearer that runaway government is the problem, not the solution. The fiscal crisis, after all, was in part engendered by the easy-money policies of the Federal Reserve, efforts to put house mortgages in the hands of people who could not afford them and governmental hand-holding with businesses in search of special favors. The recovery was slowed down to a sluggish crawl by a ceaselessly worsening debt threat. It's not unheard of for nations to sidestep self-imposed mishap. It happened in Sweden. While that nation has not abolished its high-tax welfare state, it did begin a remarkable turnaround in the 1990s, and that has led to stability in difficult times. If inveterate Scandinavian lefties can learn how flowers bloom when government lets the sun shine, so can we.
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Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
Previously:
• 11/07/12: Hanging from a poll
• 10/31/12: A dream that wouldn't come true
• 10/29/12: When the 'kooks' and 'racists' turn out to be your ideological allies
• 10/24/12: The pettiness refuge
• 10/18/12: An interruption that tells a bigger tale
• 10/17/12: A recovery that wasn't
• 10/12/12: Big Bird squabble points to something real
• 10/11/12: The 'war' you don't hear about --- the one on average Americans
• 08/22/12: Obama leadership: Romney's returns trump road to recovery
• 08/15/12: Saving Medicare the Ryan way
• 08/01/12: Combatting free speech
• 07/25/12: Good and bad reactions to Colorado horror
• 07/18/12: Apology time for Obama
• 07/16/12: Free markets solve climate change threats
• 07/11/12: Humans and particles and those who would order them
• 07/06/12: Why we'll miss Andy Griffith
• 07/05/12: All will feel Affordable Care Act's bite
• 07/02/12: A social solution --- homes with dads
• 06/27/12: Being a 'nation of immigrants' is not an excuse
• 06/20/12: Barack Obama the autocrat
• 06/18/12: Bradbury's lessons for today
• 06/13/12: Should this leaking administration sink?
• 06/11/12: Simpson bashes back on reform
• 06/05/12: Legalize sugary drinks, ban dangerous drugs
• 06/04/12: Keep America from going Greek
• 06/01/12: Don't believe in Obama's fairy tales
• 05/30/12: Writing a book? Beats prison
• 05/23/12: Student loans fail students
• 05/21/12: Europeanizing America into crisis
• 05/16/12: Obama a bully, too
• 05/15/12: Walker recall vote could swing national pension policy
• 05/07/12: Bumbling, fumbling, benighted, old Washington near tipping point where freedom is done for
• 05/02/12: The Communists cannot be happy
• 04/30/12: There's no objective truth, least of all concerning behavior
• 04/25/12: Forgive the extremist?
• 04/23/12: Educational excellence is a game
• 04/18/12: Obama's interventions help a few by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible, yet hurt many more
• 04/16/12: Overregulation strikes again: The nanny state threatens to turn us into children
• 04/11/12: Obama is not bonkers
• 04/04/12: Will America vote against authoritarianism?
• 04/02/12: 'Tipping point' on federal restraint approaches
• 03/28/12: Obama truth from an open mike
• 03/21/12: The progressive campaign for voter fraud
• 03/19/12: Public pensions will get us if we don't watch out
• 03/14/12: Politics needs reporting, not speculation
• 03/12/12: Home of the free, the brave, the endangered
• 03/07/12: Obama used Limbaugh as scapegoat
• 03/05/12: Campaign substance lost in media melodrama
• 03/01/12: When Big Brother drowns
• 02/24/12: Obama goes gaseous on gas
• 02/22/12: Political tears for trust in personal empowerment --- except in the bedroom
• 02/17/12: Of cut-off ears and silenced mouths
• 02/15/12: Obama is a joke whose antics aren't funny
• 02/10/12: An energy boom looms, despite Obama
• 02/08/12: Obama's assault on faith
• 02/03/12: Can Romney get serious?
• 01/27/12: Obama is like an Italian ship captain
• 01/25/12: Newt Gingrich's first 100 days
• 01/20/12: Obama's Keystone pipeline lies
• 01/18/12: Critics worse than urinating Marines
• 01/13/12: Ron Paul is a cartoonish character
• 01/11/12: Newt Gingrich upset by Mitt Romney's brilliance
• 01/09/12: How about regulating presidents, too?
• 01/04/12: How America smothers itself
• 12/30/11: A tax break that helps break the nation
• 12/28/11: Watch out for the banana peel, Newt
• 12/21/11: A tale of two men
• 12/16/11: Strange happenings in Russia
• 12/14/11: Tim Tebow is a man of character
• 12/09/11: A populist, envy-mongering fraud divisively exacerbating resentment among different groups of Americans
• 12/07/11: Tax games threaten nation
• 12/05/11: Why Wal-Mart serves us better than Barney Frank
• 11/30/11: Not writing off Newt
• 11/28/11: Answers to the Iranian threat
• 11/23/11: Failure of the incumbency investment
• 11/18/11: Occupiers: Chop off their heads!
• 11/16/11: Obama asks jobless to sacrifice
• 11/09/11: Michael Moore's insufferable occupation
• 11/04/11: Political tipping point is coming
• 11/02/11: Idealogues versus 7 billion
• 10/28/11: Obama games on student loans
• 10/26/11: Wit and quick moves v. humanity and thoroughgoing honesty? It's no contest —- or at least shouldn't be
• 10/07/11: Baptists, bootleggers and Wall Street protesters
• 10/05/11: Federal law will get you even if you watch out
• 09/28/11: Leftist bugbears on the march
• 09/23/11: Still hope for coal to help us
• 09/21/11: Obama's Madoff ploy
• 09/19/11: U.S. can't afford to wait until it happens
• 09/14/11: Defending -- and strengthening -- gung ho collectivism
• 09/12/11: A pipeline to better times
• 09/08/11: Obama just keeps destroying jobs
• 09/06/11: Ultra-feminists thwarting justice
• 08/31/11: Corporations are people? Yes, Count the ways
• 08/26/11: What an earthquake tells us about debt
• 08/25/11: The tyranny of scientific consensus
• 08/23/11: Fracking hardly a public health threat
• 08/17/11: Why Obamacare won't control births
• 08/15/11: Balanced budget amendment unbalanced idea
• 08/10/11: Kerry's war on citizen speech
• 08/05/11: Upside to the compromise leaving the door open for obnoxious maneuvers
• 08/03/11: The people who may save America
• 07/29/11: On making deals, Obama is no LBJ
• 07/27/11: The threat behind the debt
• 07/23/11: Mean opposition to means-testing
• 07/20/11: Leftist babble makes debt crisis even worse
• 07/18/11: Time to raise demagoguery ceiling
• 07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly
• 07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated?
• 07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery
© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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