Sometimes a picture is needed, courtesy of Heritage.org is needed to demonstrate how screwed this country is if the status quo of political establishment politics as usual remains unaltered.  By 2049, entitlements alone will consume all the country’s tax revenue.   All of this was compiled by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.  The alternatives from the liberal left result in destruction of our country:

1. Raise taxes — The Democrats, MSM, and even a few establishment Republicans are define raising taxes as “more revenue”.  This of course robs more capital from businesses to invest in hiring people and growing their businesses.
2. Increased regulation in the name of social justice — Democrats believe they know what is best for the people.  Teddy Roosevelt believed it should be ultimately the government’s say about how the people of this nation should spend their hard-wages.  After all, politicians are so much more virtuous and sanctimonious than the average American citizen.  Environmentalism and unions comprise this belief as well.
3. Increased spending — No need to debate this.  We are experiencing the predictable and ultimate outcome of all experimentation with Keynesian economic theory and New Deal socialism.  Here is a perfect summation:

We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.

The only way that state benefit programmes could be extended in the ways that are forecast for Europe’s ageing population would be by government seizing all the levers of the economy and producing as much (externally) worthless currency as was needed – in the manner of the old Soviet Union.

That is the problem. So profound is its challenge to the received wisdom of postwar Western democratic life that it is unutterable in the EU circles in which the crucial decisions are being made – or rather, not being made. …

We have been pretending – with ever more manic protestations – that this could go on for ever. Even when it became clear that European state pensions (and the US social security system) were gigantic Ponzi schemes in which the present beneficiaries were spending the money of the current generation of contributors, and that health provision was creating impossible demands on tax revenue, and that benefit dependency was becoming a substitute for wealth-creating employment, the lesson would not be learnt. We have been living on tick and wishful thinking.

The hardest obstacle to overcome will be the idea that anyone who challenges the prevailing consensus of the past 50 years is irrational and irresponsible. That is what is being said about the Tea Partiers. In fact, what is irrational and irresponsible is the assumption that we can go on as we are.

Morrissey rightly points out what this election is all about and the choice this country will choose:

Janet Daley draws the proper conclusions, writing that both Europe and the US are currently proving that nanny-state structures cannot coexist with free economies in the long run.  Inevitably, people have to choose between the command economies required by burdensome entitlement programs or free economies and personal responsibility.

It cannot be written any better than that. 

The Checklist of Prosperity

• Repealing Obamacare by defunding it until it can be repealed legislatively – Replacing Obamacare with legislation that is completely free-market based without government interference is paramount.  People being able to shop insurance policies anywhere in the country, tort reform to protect doctors which will result in lower malpractice insurance premiums and thus, lower costs of patient care.  Of course the Democrats will scream about how the GOP is taking away health care from the people.  The GOP will rightly argue that they are giving people control over their health care options and government has no business being involved in the health care matters of the people.
• Reforming/Diminishing Medicare — Looking at that graph from Heritage, Obamacare and Medicare dwarf the Social Security entitlement.  This is the liberals crown jewel, their Big Government baby.  I say this must be the one of the first targets of spending cuts.  Paul Ryan has a lot of good ideas in this area.  Of course, the Democrats and liberals will scream about this as well, saying Republicans are taking away health care.  Just look at how they dug in in the recent debt ceiling negotiations.  To them, government is the solution to all our problems.  Wrong.  The people are more than capable of solving their problems.  When I look at it, if free-market health care legislation can be enacted as in bullet point #1, it would make the transition from cutting lose the cords of the Medicare entitlement upon the people much less painful.
• Economic growth through significantly reducing budgets of federal agencies and eliminating job killing regulation that those agencies use to threaten or worse, destroy businesses with.
• Simplifying the tax code — No change in the tax rates, everyone has to pay taxes from the poorest to the richest, elimination of some if not most tax deductions and subsidies will have to happen here.  If the Democrats are calling for tax increases, then their big entitlement Medicare baby are on the table but the base tax rates being raised anywhere is not on the table.
• Social Security reform — This is a tough one.  The GOP establishment typically is afraid of this one.  Whether we like it or not, the government made a promise to the people with the Social Security Act enacted by FDR.  People have been paying taxes into the Social Security fund for their entire lives.  We all know the fund has been raided repeatedly by establishment politicians for their re-election purposes over the years.  The government has no business being gatekeeper or money manager of a person’s retirement plan.  The people should have fired the government as their financial retirement manager a long time ago.  President Bush tried going the privitization route in 2005 only to be villified by the Democrats.  People should be in charge of their own money, plain and simple.
• Cutting spending and focusing on reducing our nation’s debt– No need to go into detail here.  S&P is saying that another downgrade could be likely in the next 12 to 18 months if we continue to not address this issue.  If we do not, we will have to inflate our way out.  Think the Weimar Republic of Germany in the early 20th century and you get an idea.  Not a very pretty picture, is it?  If we are fortunate enough to grow our economy while cutting spending, we could use the resulting surpluses to start paying down our national debt.  The GOP has never had, to my memory, a “going to the Moon”, think big goal for our nation.  Campaigning on getting our nation debt-free within 20 years could be that big goal that could jarringly invigorate the American people to accomplish. To quote Einstein “With every difficulty lies opportunity.”  Just imagine would this would do for the American psyche if we accomplished this.  Giving this generation this task would inspire the people and the GOP.

If the GOP wins the presidency and gains a majority in the Senate, they can implement all of this through fiscal year-to-year budgets

I mentioned in an earlier post that the Democrats would be powerless to stop this.  Budgets cannot be filabustered so getting to 60 Senators in 2012 would be nice but it isn’t necessary.  The Democrats’ prospects in the Senate look bad in 2014 as well so getting to 60 then is a very big possibility.  By using this tool, the GOP could tackle the nation’s problems through year-to-year budgets while tackling cutting government down to size legislatively.  There is definitely a very hard road ahead and not much time.