Spain changing course

Only time will tell if it's enough to save them, but at least it shows that when the political will is there, major changes can be made. From Investors Business Daily, Spain is Escaping the PIIGS:

As Europe fashioned a $1 trillion bailout fund and prepared for the worst, Spain did what no one thought a socialist state could ever do: It cut public-sector workers' salaries 5% and held off their raises for 2011. Pensions were frozen for all but the poorest.

Better still, all the big money-wasting "green" and "alternative energy" projects — which a Spanish university study exposed as job killers — were scrapped. That's right, all the global warming measures put in place because of the "emergency" were dumped.

While climategate exposed the fraud of global warming, it's taking an unprecedented financial crisis to spur action. Even a leftist state when pinched can recognize the uselessness of combating the Mann-made faux emergency called global warming and take steps to put an end to the wasteful spending it demands.

Not surprisingly, markets rallied on this amazing show of will, whose message was that Spain is not Greece.

It's a heartening story to see a nation on the precipice decide to walk back from the cliff instead of jump. Up until now, socialist states from all over — from Venezuela to Greece — have always resorted to blaming others when the money ran out.

It's not going to be easy for Spain, but that's the point. Doing the right thing isn't usually an easy thing to do. There will surely be opposition and turmoil and there's no guarantee that Spain will succeed. But they're heading in the right direction.

Other nations should take a look at Spain's responsible response and ask themselves if they want to follow the example of Greece into the black hole of debt or suck it up and find the balls to take action like Spain. Sooner or later, they will have to.

As they say, "socialism works great until you run out of other people's money".

Meanwhile, in the USA: