We are out of Money: American Governance Won't Begin to Inch Forward Until the Political Class Faces Basic Facts (From the Top‪)‬

AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES, particularly the fiscal variety, tend to hold up the European Union as a model of irresponsible, big-spending economic policy. But consider this: According to E.U. rules, member countries cannot maintain budget deficits above 3 percent of gross domestic product; nor can their total debt rise above 60 percent of GDP. AS Veronique de Rugy points out in this issue ("Our Unsustainable Debt," page 16), the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 was three times the E.U.'s limit, and total debt will zoom past the 60 percent threshold sometime this year. Washington makes Paris look frugal. In March the federal government created the most expensive new entitlement in four decades, even as the bond rating company Moody's Investors Service warned that debt levels could soon precipitate a downgrade in U.S. Treasury bonds. The main opposition party fought the bill by decrying "cuts" to Medicare, and it has kept itself at arm's length from one of the few politicians talking seriously about long-term reform (see "Patti Ryan: Radical or Sellout?," page 18).