And yet, in another way, it's entirely understandable. How would you, Ms. Private Sector Employee, like to be told that you had to take a 25% wage cut because your government had borrowed too much money, and then cooked the books and lied about it? I would be rather miffed, I think.
And when people are angry, they are not always perfectly rational. They will hurt themselves, badly, if it means that they can also hurt other people who they feel have done them an injustice.
That's Megan McArdle. She was writing about the Greeks but what she is saying about them right now could easily be a prophesy of where Canadians are headed.
At the end of last week, our Prime Minister, whatever else you might think of him, made a mature and responsible statement about Canada's Old Age Security system. He pointed out that people are living longer and that the day will come when the payments required will be more than the country can afford. In other words, he attempted to be honest with the people about the amount of debt the government was assuming.
The anger was immediate and deeply cynical. Remembering that it was a reaction from the elderly that caused Brian Mulroney to make his first major retreat as prime minister, the other parties and many in the media jumped on the opportunity to stir up anger among the elderly in the hopes of wounding him. Worse, they promoted the understanding of this benefit as an entitlement for all Canadians. They encouraged people to think of Old Age Security as something they have a right to and woe to the politician who tries to tell them the truth.
It's a funny thing, by the way, that programs like Old Age Security, originally intended to provide security for seniors who might otherwise struggle, end up becoming entitlements for everyone. Whenever a program is set up so that those who have can help those who have not, you can be sure that just about everyone will decide they are have-nots.
What's the prospect for good coming out of this? Well, first consider how unlikely a thing it is to have a government that is willing to be responsible. Old Age Security isn't going to explode beyond the government's ability to pay on Harper's watch. He could just kick the can a little further down the road and let someone else deal with it. And that is what Greece and several other countries have done. And they are apparently going to keep doing it until they run out of road and default.
The most likely scenario is that we get some steps made in the right direction. They won't be enough to solve the problem but they might be enough to reduce it a bit. The best case scenario is that plus a growing realization among Canadians that we are not entitled to our entitlements.
The painful irony here is that many of the people who are most upset about this are people under thirty and even university students. If you find yourself with such a person and you hear them launching into a tirade about such matters, be prepared to do your bit. Listen patiently, and even respectfully, and then say,
You do realize that you probably won't see any benefits from this? I'm quite serious. The costs of pension system, the old age security system, the health care system are all growing faster than the country can afford. They can't possibly survive in their present form. And there is no way to make this work without sacrifice and that you are going to have to make that sacrifice because the baby boomers voted for politicians who told them they didn't all their lives.
Don't hope to convince them because you can't. They'll mostly whine about how it can all be saved if "the rich" can be made to pay their fair share. And to that you say,
That won't work. There aren't enough rich people to pay for it all. Even if we taxed every rich person for every penny they have, it wouldn't be enough to cover the costs. The social safety net can only work because the haves pay for the have-nots and, just in case you don't realize this, you are a have. You are the one who has to pay for the system to work.
That won't convince them either but it might just plant a seed that may grow.
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