Social Welfare Spending Is The Cause Of The Global Debt Crisis

The Washington Post has generally supported the conservative talking point that high levels of social welfare spending are the root of all evil. This editorial by Robert Samuelson shows how it is accomplished. It is mostly rhetoric and almost no data is used to show the relationship between welfare spending and our current crisis in Europe or in the US. The only point worth thinking about in the editorial is that demographics in many industrial states will make it more difficult to support social welfare spending in the future. This is less of a problem in the US than it will be for other industrial states. Japan, for example, has an aging population and a very high debt to GDP ratio. Japan's debt problem is unrelated to spending on social welfare, however, since its social welfare spending is among the lowest in the industrial world. Its problem is slower economic growth because of an aging population. Countries in Europe will have more difficulty dealing with unfavorable demographics if they have to deal with slower growth along with supporting an aging population in the future. Samuelson does not make these distinctions in his article. High levels of current social welfare spending are not responsible for our current problems and unfavorable demographics are not a current problem in most countries.

The next article provides some data on the relationship between social welfare spending and our current debt problems. Samuelson's article is a good example of how conservatives use rhetoric instead of data to misinform the public. Unfortunately, the Washington Post, which is not the worst paper in the US, provides a platform for propaganda to folks like Samuelson who does this on a regular basis for a living. This is one of the reasons why zombie ideas never die.