Washington Post Smacks Dems On Nose

From the editorial Dishonest Debate:

Over the next 75 years, as the Social Security trustees reported on Wednesday, the program has a projected deficit of $4 trillion; the longer the nation waits to address this problem, the nastier the tax hikes or benefit reductions that will result. But that's not the impression conveyed by some Democratic leaders. The trustees' report, according to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), "confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place: the minds of Republicans." The senator's desire to score political points is understandable. His willingness to do so by implying that Social Security is healthy is not.

Democrats defend this opportunism by saying the president is worse. President Bush, they complain, is talking up an alleged Social Security "crisis" in order to ram through an unrelated proposal to create personal accounts. But, in addressing Social Security, Mr. Bush is taking on an issue that the Clinton administration also regarded as important; he is not inventing a problem.

...

It is also true that Medicare poses more of a problem than Social Security. Mr. Bush dodges that larger problem, pretending that he put Medicare on the road to reform when, in fact, he and Congress mostly added to its fiscal problems by creating a new entitlement for drug reimbursements. But it's hard to take seriously the Democrats who say that Mr. Bush should switch focus from Social Security to the much bigger problem of Medicare: If they aren't willing to play a constructive role on the supposedly "minor" challenge of Social Security, why should anyone believe that they would behave constructively if the administration wanted to fix Medicare?

The nation faces a severe economic threat from the aging of its population combined with escalating health costs. The sooner it begins to grapple with this problem, the less painful the solution will be. For Mr. Bush, that would mean acknowledging the need for more revenue. For the Democrats, it would require for a smidgeon of honesty about Social Security's state.

I'd say the Post has it just about right. They might have added that the Dems play a dishonest game about the Medicare drug coverage as well. They complain that it is more expensive of a program than the Bush administration originally said it was going to be, but there is no indication that the Democrats would have done anything differently. If the Democrats are really against the drug benefit, which they obviously are not, they should speak up about it. Since when has an expansion in Medicare not been outrageously expensive? And since when have the Democrats not been on the side wanting to expand Medicare? (In case you didn't know the answers are "never" and "never.")

It seems clear that Bush is not going to get the Social Security "reform" he wants. The Democrats are now in a position where they might be able to wrangle real concessions from Bush and congressional Republicans. Why they instead prefer to stick their heads in the sand is anyone's guess. I'm fairly confident they could even get the Republicans to raise the income levels on Social Security tax above the $100,000 mark.

Why would that be a bad thing?