What we already knew is now confirmed by analysts: We cannot pay for a national health care program by simply taxing the rich.

“This idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5 percent, that’s a basically unstable way of governing,” Mr. Burman said.

That position, analysts predict, cannot hold over time.

“There is no way we can pay for health care and the rest of the Obama agenda, plus get our long-term deficits under control, simply by raising taxes on the wealthy,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, a former Clinton administration budget official. “The middle class is going to have to contribute as well.”

Obama isn't budging on this issue, so we'll eventually have to face the deficit problem anyhow, with the curious result that the middle class will find it even harder to survive the economic downturn. But while the Obamarama crowd is completely focused on its European-modeled solutions, the true socialists over at Cuba seem to know better:

Raul Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, potentially weakening the building blocks of its communist system in a bid to revive a foundering economy.

The former defense minister who took over the presidency last year called state spending "simply unsustainable" and said the cash-strapped government would reorganize rural schools and scrutinize its free health care system in search of ways to save money.

He also said cuts were in store for the universal health care system, which, along with free education through college, subsidized housing and food provided on a monthly ration system, forms the basis of the communist way of life that the Castro brothers have spent 50 years building.

Like the true socialist he is, Raul Castro ain't budging either, although he at least recognizes the importance of cutting government spending to pay off debt and get the economy going again. Hey, isn't this what Conservatives all across the board in the West have been saying all the time? But dread not, for it seems like the confused melting pot of voters are finally waking up to smell the coffee, e.g. they're turning increasingly Conservative:

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.

How about that? Seems like the Obamarama high is wearing off, like the bong hit on a drug addict. Question is if people are going to quit their smoking habits on the political scene or continue dealing the happy dough that every day brings us one inch closer to societal collapse. As always, be joyful, but never trust the crowd.