Andrew Sullivan writes:
This is not a conversation over whether Social Security has an unfunded liability. It does. It is a question over whether that liability threatens to destroy our fiscal future. It doesn't. It's as simple as that. Conversely, if health care costs rise unchecked over the next 75 years, they will consume half of our GDP. 
Sullivan may not like it, but the fiscal threat is a health care threat. There is no Social Security threat. And that can't be wished away or dismissed. The administration knows that. The Congressional Budget Office knows that. Even Sullivan, on some level, knows that. His post hedges itself, saying the threat is "especially Medicare." Later, he worries that "the left seems adamant in refusing any reforms until they have us all in their national health scheme, from birth to death." But he still uses the language of entitlements because he's more comfortable with the seemingly simple solutions -- "the GOP will have to accept some tax hikes and the Dems will have to accept some entitlement cuts" -- that entitlements allow. And I agree: If this were just an entitlement problem, the solutions would be simpler. Painful, but simpler. But entitlements are not the problem. And there are no simple solutions to health care. But that doesn't free us from the need for a solution. Because without one, our fiscal future really is threatened. Update: Not finished with Social Security wonkery? Paul Waldman has much more.
Now we see the real struggle for the soul of this administration. Obama wants to tackle the insolvency of the big three entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These three programs, especially Medicare, will destroy the fiscal future, unless we pare them back now.This isn't true. I don't know another way to say it. Social Security does not threaten our fiscal future. This is not an argument. There are not two sides. There are just the numbers.If nothing is done -- if Social Security is left untouched -- then over the next four decades, federal spending on all entitlement programs that aren't Medicare and Medicaid will increase by one percentage point of GDP. One percentage point does not threaten to destroy our fiscal future. The CBO estimates that Social Security's 75-year projected shortfall is 0.56 percent of GDP. Again, 0.56 percent of GDP does not threaten to destroy our fiscal future. To make the point more sharply, take something else that liberals don't like: The Bush tax cuts. They are regressive. They are expensive. They are a poor use of dollars. They crowd out important projects and priorities. But they do not threaten our fiscal future. Yet making them permanent -- something that Andrew, as far as I know, has previously supported -- would impose a much greater long-term cost than Social Security:
This is not a conversation over whether Social Security has an unfunded liability. It does. It is a question over whether that liability threatens to destroy our fiscal future. It doesn't. It's as simple as that. Conversely, if health care costs rise unchecked over the next 75 years, they will consume half of our GDP. 
Sullivan may not like it, but the fiscal threat is a health care threat. There is no Social Security threat. And that can't be wished away or dismissed. The administration knows that. The Congressional Budget Office knows that. Even Sullivan, on some level, knows that. His post hedges itself, saying the threat is "especially Medicare." Later, he worries that "the left seems adamant in refusing any reforms until they have us all in their national health scheme, from birth to death." But he still uses the language of entitlements because he's more comfortable with the seemingly simple solutions -- "the GOP will have to accept some tax hikes and the Dems will have to accept some entitlement cuts" -- that entitlements allow. And I agree: If this were just an entitlement problem, the solutions would be simpler. Painful, but simpler. But entitlements are not the problem. And there are no simple solutions to health care. But that doesn't free us from the need for a solution. Because without one, our fiscal future really is threatened. Update: Not finished with Social Security wonkery? Paul Waldman has much more. 
