The NYT notes the current deficit problems and asks "How, for example, will the next president rein in the cost of retirement and health programs?" The better question is why should the next president rein in the cost of retirement programs? The Congressional Budget Office's projections show that the main government retirement program will be fully funded for almost thirty years after the latest date that the next president can leave office, so why should the next president be reining in the cost, because the NYT wants it to? It would be equally sensible to ask how will the next president rein in the cost of interest payments on the national debt. The next president could have a partial default on the national debt to accomplish this task. Since workers have already paid the Social Security taxes to fund their retirement far into the future, the NYT implicitly wants the federal government to default on the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund (the implication of "reining in the cost" of Social Security). If the NYT wants default on these bonds to be on the national agenda, then there is no obvious reason that default on government bonds more generally should not be on the national agenda.
--Dean Baker
