Is France beyond reform?
Article by Peter Skurkiss in "The American Thinker":
The
events in Iran have sucked all the oxygen out of other stories and
dominates news coverage. But it is still a big world out there with all
sort of things happening. Take France for instance. A short while ago,
French President Emmanuel Macron proposed much-needed reforms to
France's pension system, which the government is mainly responsible for
maintaining. The pension system is said to be generous and is now facing
a $19 billion deficit.
The
reforms that Macron proposed were modest. It was basically to raise the
retirement age from 62 to 64 and to standardize pensions across the
country. Well, the roof caved in. As the New York Times reports, massive strikes, marches and demonstrations across the country ensued, convulsing the economy.
This
forced "Macron's government to carve out a series of concessions to
individual professions in recent days -- the police, dancers at the
Paris opera, airline flight attendants, pilots -- moving back towards
precisely the same type tailored retirement structure his reform sought
to end."
This
past Saturday, things turned violent with anti-government protesters,
mostly union people, clashing with police. The Times reports a bank
branch was sacked, bus shelters burned, and other fires set. This
prompted government into another hasty retreat saying it would withdraw
the proposed age limit change and "postpone major decisions on how to
keep the system solvent until it can better assess the situation between
now and the end of April."
In
response, Marine Le Pen criticized Macron, saying: "You introduce
something that's unacceptable, and then you withdraw it. Nothing
justifies this reform." Nothing? The pension fund running out of money
is nothing?
In
a competitive world, the French seem to believe they can still have
what they want without paying for it. There is a suggestion of how to
solve the pension dilemma, however. It comes from one Philippe Martinez,
leader of the hardline General Confederation of Workers union. He says
the government has to permanently scrap the entire reform effort. His
solution to the pension deficit? Simple. Just raise salaries.
Based
on the attitude of unionists like Martinez and the rightwing politician
Le Pen, the answer to the question of whether reform is possible in
France appears to be no, at least not any time soon.
Before
becoming too smug about the French predicament, ask yourself if America
is that much different. When faced with the problem of wanting to
spend what it can't afford, our political class doesn't say "just raise
salaries." Instead it simply borrows and/or creates the money necessary.
This is why our national debt is over $21 trillion with a trillion
dollars projected to be added each year. To that amount can be added the
unfunded liabilities of programs like Social Security and Medicare and
the pension shortfalls of many states.
Not
satisfied, leftist economic professors and some high-level Democrats
are pushing the snake oil of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). In a
nutshell, MMT would take the brakes off any semblance of fiscal
restraint and responsible and be used to fund every dream the
progressives ever had.
This
addiction to government debt has seemingly worked out only because the
bill hasn't yet come due. But someday the reckoning will come. It will
take as true crisis of a Fourth Tuning magnitude to bring fiscal
responsible behavior back into vogue. This will be a time of pain and
suffering as the system readjusts itself to a new norm. It may be that
most of us will not be around when that happens. However, our children
or grandchildren will be which is what happens when you borrow from the
future.
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