Robert Samuelson February 9, 2014

Something strange is happening in Washington. We are slowly dismantling thefederal government, even as its spending is growing larger. The paradoxis that governmental competence is being systematically degraded whilethe government’s size, as measured by its budget, is increasing. We arespending more and getting less, and — unless present trends are reversed — this will continue for years. It threatens the end of government aswe know it.

The cause is no mystery. An aging population and higher health spendingautomatically increase budget outlays, which induce the president andCongress to curb spending on almost everything else, from defense tofood stamps. Over the next decade, all the government’s projectedprogram growth stems from Social Security and health care, including the Affordable Care Act. By 2024, everything else willrepresent only 7.4 percent of national income (gross domestic product), the lowest share since at least 1940, says Douglas Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office.

This is the central budget story, and it’s largely missed — or ignored — bypolitical leaders, the media, political scientists and the public. Thewelfare state is taking over government. It’s strangling government’sability to respond to other national problems and priorities, becausethe constituencies for welfare benefits, led by Social Security’s 57million, are more numerous and powerful than their competitors forfederal support. Politicians of both parties are loath to challengethese large, expectant and generally sympathetic groups.

The United States, of course, is not the only advanced society grapplingwith aging, but it is extreme in its stubborn denial of the obvious. The Pew Research Center recently polled people in 21 countriesabout whether aging is a problem. The United States ranked 19th in itsunconcern, ahead of only Indonesia and Egypt, whose populations areyoung. Only 26 percent of Americans thought aging was a problem. Theshare was 87 percent in Japan, 55 percent in Germany and 45 percent inFrance.

Why the differences? Pew speculates that these other societies are alreadyolder and are aging faster. In Japan, the 65-and-over population isprojected to be 37 percent of the total in 2050, up from 23 percent in2010. For Germany, the increase is from 2010’s 21 percent to 33 percent. These societies face huge adjustments. By contrast, the United States’shift is from 13 percent in 2010 to 21 percent in 2050. But that’s still a major change, with most of it occurring by 2025. Americans don’tworry about aging, mainly because their leaders studiously avoid thesubject.

Choices are made on the sly with little public understanding. The Budget Control Act of 2011 imposed across-the-board limits on most non-Social Security and non-health-care spending; the 2013 “sequester” deepened cuts. To offset an explosion of spending on new retirees (in the next decade, Social Security beneficiaries grow by a third), the remedy is to chopthe rest. Consider:

●The military is being weakened. As a share of national income, defense spending is projected to fall by 40 percent from 2010 to 2024. For example, the Air Force has discussed retiring all its 300 A-10 jets, a close-in ground support fighter, for a savings of $3.7 billion. The move would mean that “more people will get hurt and die” in combat, one general told the Wall Street Journal.

●The National Institutes of Health reports that since 2003 its budget has declined 22 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. The cuts squeeze research for Alzheimer’s,AIDS, cancer and heart disease — among others — and makes it harder foryounger scientists to get grants.

●Chief Justice John Roberts warns that cuts in the federal courts’ $7 billion budget threaten delays in trials and decisions. Since 1997, the system’s workforce hasshrunk 14 percent, despite more civil filings (up 2 percent), criminaldefendants charged (up 34 percent) and people on probation (up 45percent).

These examples aren’t isolated. The Post reports that the number of immigration judges has fallen nearly 10 percent, making deportation hearings more perfunctory. Government’s mostpowerful agency isn’t even on the organizational chart. It’s AARP, thechief lobbying group for retirees, which triumphs over the Pentagon andother Cabinet departments. A better balance between retirees andeverything else needs to be found.

But no one is looking. Budget debates and the media focus on deficits anddebt ceilings. This makes people seem engaged when they are actuallyevading explicit choices of what programs to cut and taxes to raise.Both liberals and conservatives are complicit in this charade, butliberals are more so because their unwillingness to discuss SocialSecurity and Medicare benefits candidly is the crux of the budgetstalemate. This refusal is rich in irony: The pro-government party inrhetoric has become an anti-government party in practice.

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