For those who get it, CNN International is covering the elections in Europe and it is interesting to see many of the same issues we are dealing with here being discussed there.
In Greece for example the economy is in a shambles and the basics of math dictate that there have to be spending cuts, in many cases very severe ones. We don’t quite face that problem here yet but if we do not get our financial house in order we likely will face the issue in the future.
And like here, some of the voters (perhaps understandably) do not want to deal with that, or in the alternative they want to push the burden onto someone else. The early returns show a very fragmented vote with parties on the hard left and hard right making gains. The hard left having advocated no cuts of any kind while the hard right wants to blame everything on the poor, rather than sharing the burden with everyone.
In France we have the first Socialist President elected in 17 years in the form of Francois Hollande. There are some concerns over his proposals to drastically increase tax rates and expand government spending but that may depend on the outcome of legislative elections in June, as well as the current economic realities.