Why is it so hard for the United States to proactively deal with looming problems? We face serious funding problems for Social Security as well as municipal retirement plans. Medicare is a ticking time bomb. We have ignored for years our growing dependence on foreign (often hostile) oil producers. Yet, the Herculean efforts of the government over the past few months to rescue us from the blunders of the past have pushed such matters so far off the front page that one doubts we will hear about any of them for years. Sadly, we probably won’t hear of them until they blow up in our face once again.