Europe Rises as America Falls
The situation in the United States looks bleak as the country endures the third year of what will most likely become known as The Second Great Depression. At the same time, our friends in Europe are showing encouraging signs of recovery.
Over the last few years, the voters of Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy have replaced leftist politicians with more moderate alternatives. The same pattern also holds true even for the European Parliament elections.
Of the large Western European countries, only Spain remains in the hands of the more left-leaning party. Spain’s election was largely influenced by a well-timed terrorist attack. In the immediate wake of a railroad bombing, the Spanish voters made a sudden decision to replace a strongly European government with one more acceptable to the Islamist minority.
It would be dangerous to mistake Europe’s powerful center-right politicians for libertarians. All of them strongly believe that government should control the lives of individual citizens, but to a slightly lesser degree than their more-leftist opponents.
The European center-right parties have succeeded with voters largely by adopting many elements of socialism into their party platforms. Center-right parties have succumbed to popular demands for state-sponsored welfare and state-run medical care. They have also embraced anti-business issues such as radical environmentalism and intrusive regulation of business relationships.
On the other hand, they have also succeeded by promising lower taxes and less government overhead on the economy. This, of course, is a recipe for disaster. No government can permanently exist by promising to do more for less. Eventually such governments drive their nations into debt and penury.
The United States is several years ahead of Europe in that area. The Republican party lost power in the U.S. largely as a result of voter dissatisfaction over it’s lack of fiscal discipline. Instead of reducing governments footprint, the Republican party allowed it to grow throughout the last decade. This caused many traditional Republican voters to withhold financial support from the party and to stay home on election day. The United States is now burdened with it’s largest debt to GDP ratio since WWII and the largest debt to GDP ratio among the “advanced” nations.
The European nations will follow the United States into decline if they fail to learn the lessons of our mistakes. To succeed long-term, the European center-right parties must embrace free markets and fiscal responsibility. In they fail to do so, they will face the same massive trade and budget deficits that currently afflict the United States.
