Kristof's Inane Fear-Mongering

NYT "sage" Nicolas Kristof foresees a failed state future should America balk at Obama spendaholism:

With Tea Party conservatives and many Republicans balking at raising the debt ceiling, let me offer them an example of a nation that lives up to their ideals.       

It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs.       

This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled.       

The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.       

So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.       

Now obviously Sarah Palin and John Boehner don’t intend to turn Washington into Islamabad-on-the-Potomac. And they are right that long-term budget issues do need to be addressed. But when many Republicans insist on “starving the beast” of government, cutting taxes, regulations and social services — slashing everything but the military — well, those are steps toward Pakistan...

Yeah, reign in government spending and the U.S. and Pakistan are dead ringers, right?

Oh, except for the little matter of Islam, I mean.

A paragraph or so later, Kristof concedes that his fear-mongering re Pakistan is, well, just that, but raises an even scarier spectre--heartless Republicans with scissors:

The United States is, of course, in no danger of actually becoming Pakistan, any more than we’re going to become Sweden at the other extreme. But as America has become more unequal, as we cut off government lifelines to the neediest Americans, as half of states plan to cut spending on higher education this year, let’s be clear about our direction — and about the turnaround that a Republican budget victory would represent.       

In fact, Kristof has it backwards. Failed state status looms if the U.S. doesn't slash government spending and get a handle on its meteoric debt.