Yes, we do our best to eliminate perverse incentives to stay on welfare, but even then, most people did not, in fact, care to stay on welfare, but treated it as a temporary expedient. Those who tended to be chronic were undereducated and unlikely to fair much better in work.
The operant term is temporary. I have said, in discussing deficits, that they have to be be reduced over time to keep debt service manageable. In other words, a spike is nothing to worry about, one has to look at the question within longer time frames, where a rise in the debt is proportional to revenue growth and balanced in respect of outlays. Since it is desirable to reduce obligations, so that taxes are not driven up due to anxiety over the debt, a hard look at mandatory spending is a good idea.
I do not consider current foreign policy to be over- reaching. I consider it pretty conservative, to tell the truth. A really aggressive, adventurist policy would already have invaded Syria and Iran. |
