by dreckless guest columnist
There is a wonderful conversation occurring on Cato Unbound concerning the future of limited government conservatism. The lead essay, by David Frum, contains the familiar lament that the GOP has lost its golden opportunity to reverse the massive expansion of government that is about to result from the combination of entitlement programs and the retirement of the baby boom. Bruce Bartlett restates his view that the entitlement explosion is inevitable, and we should adopt a VAT (rather than raising other taxes) to pay for it. David Boaz looks for a new political alignment to rescue the cause of limited government.
I look at it differently. Frum argues that the “best opportunity” to deal with the problem has passed, and from a planner’s perspective he is correct. Reforming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in 1995, while the retirement of the baby boom was 15 years in the future, would have involved less pain than reforming them in 2015, while the boomers are in the process of retiring. What Frum fails to recognize is that, for that very reason, reform was not going to happen in 1995.
As others in the conversation point out, it is impossible in a democratic republic to modify benefits for voters today because of a problem that lies years in the future. No matter how powerful a set of ideas is, if it requires major change to the status quo it is not likely to become policy until there is a crisis. In the preface to the 1982 edition of Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman explained this dynamic:
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