Daniel Henninger looks at what is smothering the Democrats – and America:
Yes, health care was ground zero, but Massachusetts—like New Jersey, like California, like New York—has been building toward this explosion for years.
According to a study done for the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth, spending in specific public categories there skyrocketed the past 20 years (1987 to 2007).
Public safety: up 139%; social services, 130%; education, 44%. And of course Medicaid Madness, up 163%, before MassCare kicked in more Medicaid obligations.
But here’s the party’s self-destroying kicker: Feeding the public unions’ wage demands starved other government responsibilities. It ruined our ability to have a useful debate about any other public functions.
Massachusetts’ spending fell for mental health, the environment, housing and higher education. The physical infrastructure in blue states is literally falling apart. But look at those public wage and pension-related outlays. Ever upward.
Public payroll, pensions and benefits have been killing California. Every blue state is facing the same problem. The red states are rapidly catching up.
Think about what ObamaCare really is about – a vast expansion of the Federal bureaucracy. Look at the mad expansion of very, very high paying jobs in government just since Obama took office.
Think about what doomed the Soviet Union – a vast, out-of-touch bureaucracy that kept all the best for themselves and “gave” the proles what little they didn’t want.
