Americans Mourn The Future As Deficit Grows

A new New York Times/CBS poll shows that the number of Americans who think the country is on the wrong track has risen sharply to 70%. The figure has not been that bad in two years, when the recession was in full swing.  Deficit and national debt issues are the critical change since then. Unemployment is better. Business activity is as well.  Low housing prices and high fuel prices are also a reason for the unease, but one is several years old and the other has been a problem for several months.

Americans are considering their futures more than their current circumstances and the future is depressing.

The statistics about people’s feelings about the economy are not too bad. Thirty-eight percent think it is getting worse. Thirty-eight percent think its is staying the same. With an unemployment rate near 9%, the figures should be expected. So should the numbers about how a cut in the budget deficit would affect jobs. Twenty-nine percent think jobs would be lost. Twenty-nine percent think it would add jobs.Twenty-seven percent expect no change. A reduction in the deficit might cut the prospects of some businesses, but not enough to make people believe that all businesses will be hurt. Perhaps they reason the economy will continue to expand even with deficit reduction as part of the new environment.

Jobs and the economy are near-term problems, at least as far as history shows. There is no real historical comparison to plans to cut deficits by lowering entitlement programs. The poll results say that is where Americans are most concerned. Seventy-eight percent think it is the government’s responsibility to provide health coverage for the elderly. Only 56 percent say the government should provide health care for the poor. Everyone thinks he will get old. That is not the case with poverty.

Americans are frightened that their health care costs will rise as they age. Washington has helped prevent that for decades. Now, funds for retirement have been eroded by home prices and the disappearance of corporate pension plans. The elderly will have to pay more of their own daily expenses along with health care costs. That will be enough to make some of them poor. That cycle is particularly frightening for people between their early forties and early sixties. They sense that there is no solution to the oncoming drop in benefits. The government will balance its budget to some extent on their backs.

The decades ahead will be hard for those who grow old during that period. There is almost no getting around that, and the people who will be caught in the trap know it.

Douglas A. McIntyre