austerity sweeps USA?

Economics. Wish I understood it.
When I was a kid, that was back in the late 1970's early 1980's
some European cousins converted me to Socialism,
just about the time the "Socialist" world started to take a tumble
anyone remember 1979?

Now a serious question, are we seeing this happen again, only on a bigger scale?
Europe, which is sort of a model home of Social Democratic policies,
is in trouble, no really it is.
I mean its hard sometimes to determine what is really going on because no news source is truly unbiased but European economies seem to be toppling like dominoes onto the austerity bandwagon
Is this what is in store for us?
I mean I'm in the middle, I've always been for spending, mostly because I never have to pay for it.
Health care education, housing , jobs, I'm for all that stuff the environment, public transportation.
100% behind all those good things, tax the rich feed the poor, equality, justice, fraternity etc so forth.
But do we need to be realistic. Will too much of a good thing bankrupt us?
Do we have to fear what we see in Europe happening here?
I'm a fiscal moderate, I like to think of myself as a realist, maybe I'm just getting cynical.
But how much good can a society do for its people if its economy goes belly up?
A thought its just a thought.