Brutal honesty – from China

Although I'm pretty unhappy with the direction of this country, I don't put much stock in comparisons to China.

Yes, in our personal and economic decisions, we enjoy fewer and fewer freedoms. Yes, government at every level continues to grow. Yes, the state increasingly believes it holds title to your money, your property, even your children, and only through the benevolence of our elected officials and bureaucrats are we allowed to keep what we have.

But, no, the United States most definitely is not communist China.

So imagine my surprise, amid the can-kicking "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington, when China provided us with a teaching moment that, while heavy-handed, made clear to the masses that government can't take care of everyone.

Was Congress paying attention?

On Dec. 28, the Chinese national legislature amended its elderly law to require adult children to visit their parents "often" - and parents can sue if junior doesn't come around.

How can a country with more than 1.3 billion people can keep track of parental visits by adult children? However it wants - the Chinese do not enjoy due process or particularly strong laws governing evidence.

But the larger message from China is what's important here.

Like the United States, China is grappling with the rapid aging of its population and how to best care for the elderly. China's demographic problems are much worse than ours, however, thanks to its one-child-per-family rule and a shortage of girls because of sex-selection abortion.

China's exploding economy is driving younger citizens into urban areas to seek high-paying work, breaking up families, leaving elderly parents alone and lacking the resources to care for themselves. Millions of Chinese seniors are complaining of abandonment.

The state press aggressively reports cases of elder abuse. According to USA Today, one especially sensational story told of a grandmother in her 90s being forced by her son to live in a pig pen for two years.

Families have always cared for one another in China, much as Americans once did. But China still lacks much of a social safety net, and precious few older Chinese can afford anything resembling a nursing home.

Both the United States and China face threats to their long-term social and economic stability. China, however, is confronting its problems with some brutal honesty: The state is not stepping in with handouts for all. Families are expected to look after their elderly. China has learned from the West that it cannot possibly afford a cradle-to-grave entitlement state, so it's not about to start one anytime soon.

Meanwhile, Washington Democrats and the Obama administration move forward with brutal dishonesty. They're borrowing and printing money like there's no tomorrow, assuring voters that unsustainable Social Security and Medicare benefits will be there for them forever, that Republicans who talk of the importance of entitlement reform are nothing but lying granny dumpers who want old people to eat dog food, shiver in the dark and croak. It's happening again now, as Democrats posture for leverage in the coming debt ceiling talks.

The "fiscal cliff" deal of last week did nothing to address the country's looming unfunded liabilities - Social Security and Medicare, the drivers of future budget deficits, will consume every federal tax dollar before too long, and we'll still have about $50 trillion in promised benefits over the next 75 years that we can't pay for.

So am I advocating a Chinese approach to America's problem? No.

For starters, an American law mandating that adult children visit their elderly parents wouldn't be constitutional. Second, it has proved politically impossible to dial back Social Security and Medicare, so eliminating them altogether is out of the question. Third, relegating the elderly to a life of poverty after they've raised their children, paid a lifetime of taxes and played a role in building their communities is unconscionable.

But the longer we wait to stabilize Social Security and Medicare, the harder it is to fix them and the greater the likelihood that they'll implode the economy and be unavailable to everyone. That would force a China-style solution on America.

Raising eligibility ages and adjusting cost-of-living increases is tinkering around the edges. The only long-term entitlement solution is to means test them - to turn them into welfare programs for elderly Americans who have no assets. That transition would have to start within two decades.

Americans in their 40s and younger deserve to know they can't include Social Security or Medicare in their immediate retirement plans. They deserve to know they'll need to run through their savings and their home equity before the government steps in to help. They deserve to know they might have to lean on their kids to keep their standard of living into old age.

They deserve some brutal honesty from their government.

China provided as much. Will the cowards in Washington ever come clean with us?

Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. Listen to him Mondays at 4 p.m. on "Live and Local with Kevin Wall" on KXNT News Radio, 100.5 FM, 840 AM.