The Entitlement Crisis That Isn’t

Posted on Oct 23, 2012

An article by author and economist Jeff Madrick in the November 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine offers an antidote to the view that social spending—not anemic tax revenues—is the cause of America’s deficit problem.

“Contrary to warnings by politicians of both parties and by almost all of the mainstream press,” Madrick writes, “America’s biggest fiscal problem is not spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; it is our almost complete unwillingness to tax ourselves sufficiently to maintain a modern state.”