The Tipping Point: Welfare as a Way of Life?

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R-01), the district just to the north of us, and Peter Wehner, WSJ, "Beware of the Big-Government Tipping Point: Socialized health care fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and state":

Nationalizing health care will be profoundly detrimental to the quality of American medicine. In the name of cost control, the government would make private investment in medical innovation far riskier, and thus delay the development of potentially lifesaving treatments. [snip]

Of course, this health-care plan is occurring against our particular fiscal backdrop: Without major reform, our federal entitlement programs will soon double the size of government. The result will be a crushing burden of debt and taxes.

In short, we may be approaching a tipping point for democratic capitalism.

Do we as Americans really want welfare as a way of life? Womb to tomb dependency? Is this any kind of life? Ryan offers an alternative roadmap for America's future:

UPDATE:Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va), CNN Politics:

Specifically, we want to keep the stimulus bill -- as well as all other future economic "rescue" measures -- limited in scope and transparent.

Our country has no other choice. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a sobering report that this year's deficit will likely climb to over 8 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, or $1.2 trillion. That's higher than at any point since World War II -- and those figures don't even account for the forthcoming stimulus.

Such heavy borrowing runs the risk down the line of rampant inflation, which scares away foreign capital while making the purchasing power of the dollar weaker for American consumers.