Entitlement crisis

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada again demonstrated why Washington is so incapable of addressing runaway federal spending.

For the second time in a month, Sen. Reid said there’s no problem with the Social Security system, even though economists, the Congressional Budget Office and President Obama’s deficit commission agree it’s unsustainable. It is already is paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes.

To address a crisis, you have to acknowledge that one exists. Yet, at a rally against Social Security reform, Sen. Reid said, “Let’s worry about Social Security when it’s a problem.” Two weeks ago, he told MSNBC, “Two decades from now, I’m willing to look at it” — when he’s 91 years old.

According to the nonpartisan CBO’s budget and economic outlook ,published in January, Social Security will have to borrow $45 billion this year, and $547 billion over the next 10 years to provide benefits. The longer we wait to tackle Social Security’s solvency, the harsher the solutions will be, whether they involve means testing, increasing the retirement age, increasing the cap on taxable income, reducing benefits, raising taxes or, most likely, some combination.

As for that Social Security trust fund that supposedly won’t be exhausted for a couple of decades, the CBO notes that, except for a bunch of I.O.Us, there is no trust fund. The money is spent. Tapping the “trust fund” merely reallocates “costs from one category of the budget to another but do not directly change the total deficit or the government’s borrowing needs.”

Due to demographic changes, General Accounting Office simulations “show that balancing the budget in 2040 could require actions as large as cutting total federal spending by 60 percent, or raising federal taxes to two times today’s level,” warns former Comptroller General David Walker.

Two-thirds of the budget goes to entitlements and interest on the national debt. We borrow to fund everything else, including the “trust funds.” To put off those reforms for another year — let alone 20 — is the height of nonfeasance and irresponsibility.