Unsustainable. That's What You Are.

Doghouse is running a retrospective of our long national nightmare.  Don't miss it.  

In one of the posts, he quotes some of BushCo's inauguraizin':

We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent. And we will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans.

Looks like Obama is taking a page from that book: (emph mine)

President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be “a central part” of his administration’s efforts to contain federal spending, signaling for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics of entitlement programs.

...

Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to consume a growing share of government spending as the baby boom generation ages into retirement over the next two decades. But he said he would have more to say about the issue when he unveiled a budget next month.

Should he follow through with a serious effort to cut back the rates of growth of the two programs, he would be opening up a potentially risky battle that neither party has shown much stomach for. The programs have proved almost sacrosanct in political terms, even as they threaten to grow so large as to be unsustainable in the long run. President Bush failed in his effort to overhaul Social Security, and Medicare only grew larger during his administration with the addition of prescription drug coverage for retirees.

Stupid, hysterical, stupid and misleading to boot!  But, since Obama continues to wake up Pandora, bonk her on the head and push her off her box so he can pry it open, it looks like we're doomed to keep having the same discussion about the sustainability of Social Security for the foreseeable future.   In the interest of time, here's the graph that should be taped to the forehead of every reporter and editor in the country no matter what section of infotainment is their domain. 

Comments

[Thomas Nephew]

Yeah. Sigh...grr. There've been a couple of good things -- Dawn Johnsen at OLC, Panetta at CIA (judging only by how many and which people were ticked off) -- but this is really bad.

[Thomas Nephew]

You're right about the Doghouse Riley series -- great stuff.