Did the Greeks Ruin A Free Lunch?

The economy in Greece is sagging, as is their solvency, as a result of massive debt run up by their government. Interest rates on government bonds are over 7% as lenders no longer have confidence that Greece will be able to pay back the immense sums that it owes. How can this be?

President Obama just signed into law a massive new health care program. Admittedly, it isn't as good as the single payer type system that the President would have liked to have had were we "starting from scratch," but the President still touts his program as a net savings for the nation. Greece has had an Obama style health care system for decades now, along with large public unions, and a generous welfare system...just the kind of policies that the Democrats are telling us will result in a fair, fraternal, prosperous society. The result isn't a utopia of high wages, great public services, and affordable government, but a broken system of corruptions, huge black markets, high unemployment, massive deficits, and now rumblings of civil unrest as people take to the streets to keep their handouts.

I'd say that Greece's experience is more instructive of the outcome of the President's policies than tortured CBO estimates that incorporate what could only be described as legislative fantasies of savings by cutting current entitlement programs. The modern welfare state is a walking corpse from the instant its set up. There is no tweaking that can make the model work. Inevitably the welfare state consumes society's wealth and then collapses on itself.