On Saturday, Mark Steyn posted an article at National Review Online talking about the relationship between the bankruptcy of Greece and President Obama’s healthcare proposal.  Mr. Steyn points out that both events are part of the same story–the events just represent different phases of the story.

Mr. Steyn points out:

“What’s happening in the developed world today isn’t so very hard to understand: The 20th-century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless, insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany, and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they’ve reached the next stage in social-democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1 — or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: Ten grandparents have six kids have four grandkids — ie, the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 “lowest-low” fertility — the point from which no society has ever recovered. And, compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.”

The bottom line here is that any government gets more of what they subsidize.  If the government keeps extending unemployment benefits, unemployed people will be in less of a rush to find a job when they lose one.  If being married means that you pay more in income taxes, fewer people get married.  When it doesn’t pay to be responsible, fewer people become responsible.  When states have reason to believe that if they legislate themselves into financial failure, the federal government will bail them out, they have no incentive to cut costs. 

As the Democrat party continues its push to pass an extremely expensive healthcare reform bill, it potentially puts America further down the road of financial irresponsibility.  We still have the choice of whether we continue on the path that Greece is on or if we turn around while we can still prevent financial disaster.