Markets are More Efficient and Accountable than Govts.

No means testing (as in Rep. Paul Ryan's budget roadmap) will be introduced to determine eligibility for full Medicare benefits, and most Social Security benefits will continue to start for individuals at age 65 or younger.

In a nutshell, there is little political will to reduce spending on entitlements by limiting them mainly to persons in need.

State and local governments also greatly increased their spending as tax revenues rolled in during the good economic times that preceded the collapse in 2008. This spending included extensive commitments to deferred benefits that could not be easily reduced after the recession hit, especially pensions and health-care benefits to retired government workers.

Unless states like California and Illinois, and cities like Chicago, take drastic steps to reduce their deferred spending, their problems will multiply as this spending grows over time. A few newly elected governors, such as Scott Walker in Wisconsin, have pushed through reforms to curtail the power of unionized state employees. But most other governors have been afraid to take on the unions and their political supporters.
Political cowardice reigns and small businessmen---the sturdy backbone of American capitalism---are being slowly destroyed by attrition as surely as the kulaks in the happily-defunct USSR were destroyed by relocation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. In America, we destroy our true national treasures, those with the imagination, habits of diligence and foresight, access tp spo,e cap[tal and the courageous risk-taking attitude that make a small business start, grow and hopefully if things work out, prosper. The rest of the world is in just as bad a predicament:

Numerous examples illustrate government failure in other countries as well. Highly publicized are the troubles facing Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain that are mainly due to the growth in spending and debt of their governments prior to the 2008 crisis. Perhaps the governments of these countries, and the banks that bought their debt, expected Germany and other rich members of the European Union to bail them out if they got into trouble. Whatever the explanation, the reckless behavior by these governments will greatly harm businesses and consumers in their countries along with taxpayers of countries coming to their rescue.

The traditional case for private competitive markets goes back to Adam Smith (and even earlier writers). It is mainly based on abundant evidence that most of the time competitive markets work quite well, usually much better than government alternatives. The main reason is not that individuals in the private sector are intrinsically better than government bureaucrats and politicians, but rather that competitive pressures discipline market behavior much more effectively than government actions.

The lesson is that it is crucial to consider whether government regulations and laws are likely to improve rather than worsen the performance of private markets. In an article "Competition and Democracy" published more than 50 years ago, I said "monopoly and other imperfections are at least as important, and perhaps substantially more so, in the political sector as in the marketplace. . . . Does the existence of market imperfections justify government intervention? The answer would be no, if the imperfections in government behavior were greater than those in the market."

The widespread demand after the financial crisis for radical modifications to capitalism typically paid little attention to whether in fact proposed government substitutes would do better, rather than worse, than markets.

Government regulations and laws are obviously essential to any well-functioning economy. Still, when the performance of markets is compared systematically to government alternatives, markets usually come out looking pretty darn good.

Gary Becker is right when he points out that more laissez-faire rather than hypothetically government-sponsored "programs" to "retrain" employees in mid-life for another skill set----or whatever the other do-gooder well-meaning bienpensant chicanery that the Obungler crowd is cooking up. In reality, there are hundreds of overlapping programs on the books that are already overfunded and underproductive that simply adding dozens more legislative schemes in order to point to one's good faith is becoming farcical.

Plus the hard-headed GOP crowd in Congress is much less susceptible to botox poisoning of the brain, leading to fatuous futility, than Queen Bee Pelosi's collection of sideshow feminista types [thinking of DeLauro & Wassermann-Schultz] and their Bravo Channel male ilk, which means that despite this O'Bozo attempt to invite himself to address Congress---happily conflicting with the Packer/Saints game which will draw two dozen viewers for every Obama watcher next Thursday night, is due for abject failure---much like the Stimulus/Porkulus union-building charade already has done.

I wonder if the GOP will even ask for facetime to rebut O'Bozo's teleprompter twaddle next Thursday, or will they be more interested in serious pastimes like an NFL contest between the last two Super Bowl Champs?