Can a major national newspaper engage in concern trolling? Because that's really the best description of The Washington Post's hand-wringing editorial over Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to propose a program to "fix" Social Security. Forget, for the moment, that no other candidate has offered such a program, yet only Clinton comes under this attack. Even if they all had Social Security plans, such plans are unnecessary. The graph below tracks predicted expenditure costs over the next 50 years. See if you can spot which lines race up, and which slowly rise in a perfectly absorbable fashion:
Clinton has, of course, offered a health care plan that holds some hope of wrestling those lines into a more manageable direction. And as you can see, a health care bill is far more important, fiscally speaking, than Social Security reform. But the Washington Post wants Clinton to waste capital on a politically unpopular entitlement reform plan that won't pass, isn't necessary, and could derail more important legislation. And why do they want this? Because it allows the paper to adopt that favored pose of editorial writers everywhere -- the willingness to advocate the big, tough ideas that wimpy, craven politicians eschew. It's editorial writing as a form of self-affirmation, and it's all the more irksome because it's incorrect on the policy.
More useful would be editorials demanding the Democrats came out against war with Iran, which is a politically risky move, but deeply necessary on the merits. Sadly, the paper has done rather the opposite...
