Seeds of Destruction: Why the Path to Economic Ruin Runs Through Washington, and How to Reclaim American Prosperity

Chapter Eight: Cutting the Gordian Knot of Entitlements

“If I tell you how things are, I have told you why things cannot change.”

Edward Banfield (1916–1999)

This classic assessment of the difficult politics of change from one of Harvard’s most notable political scientists aptly describes the inability of the American political system to come to grips with one of the greatest threats to our long-term prosperity. This threat is the explosive growth of three entitlement programs that together already consume over 40% of the entire federal budget—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Let us make no mistake about this. Unless we change the current policy trajectory, decades—not just days—of reckoning will occur as ballooning expenditures on ...