Facing limits is a contentious exercise in making choices

From The twilight of entitlement by Robert J. Samuelson.

Weighed down by these contradictions, entitlement has been slowly crumbling for decades. The Great Recession merely applied the decisive blow. We’re not entitled to many things: not to a dynamic economy; not to secure jobs; not to homeownership; not to ever-more protective government; not to fixed tax burdens; not to a college education. Sooner or later, the programs called “entitlements,” including Social Security, will be trimmed because they’re expensive and some recipients are less deserving than others.

The collision between present realities and past expectations helps explain the public’s extraordinary moodiness. The pandering to the middle class by both parties (and much of the media) represents one crude attempt to muffle the disappointment, a false reassurance that the pleasing past can be reclaimed. It can’t.

[snip]

In the post-entitlement era, people’s expectations may be more grounded. But political conflicts — who gets, who gives — and social resentments will be, as they already are, sharper. Entitlement implied an almost-limitless future. Facing limits is a contentious exercise in making choices.

This is most visible in Europe where the issues and tribulations are much more advanced than here. Never-the-less we would be well served to watch that canary in the coal mine. We have to make smart changes to establish a new affordable post-entitlement equilibria. Unfortunately, it seems few of our politicians are prepared to make hard trade-off decisions that are painful today but necessary for tomorrow. A reluctance which we as voters reward by punishing those that actually do attempt hard decisions.