I have not seen the full version myself, but the Peterson Foundation has just released a shorter version, suitable for blogspace. As we all argue about which segment of society is entitled to tax breaks I read a line in Tom Friedman’s column today in the New York Times that really hit the nail on the head. From Friedman:

Since the last debate, John McCain and Barack Obama have unveiled broad ideas about how to restore the nation’s financial health. But they continue to suggest that this will be largely pain-free. McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.

We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”

Never has one generation spent so much of its children’s wealth in such a short period of time with so little to show for it as in the Bush years. Under George W. Bush, America has foisted onto future generations a huge financial burden to finance our current tax cuts, wars and now bailouts. Just paying off those debts will require significant sacrifices. But when you add the destruction of wealth that has taken place in the last two months in the markets, and the need for more bailouts, you understand why this is not going to be a painless recovery.

Maybe it is an overblown concept, but we appear to be arguing on the deck of the Titanic about who will get that last glass of water. And it appears to be a universally accepted theory that speaking the truth about difficult times ahead is politically undoable. I do not believe that is true, but I am a distinct minority on that subject.