Hey It Needs To Be Done

Well, it didn't take long for what is actually a reasonable starting point for a dialogue about how to handle Social Security's impending financial depletion to be irresponsibly demagogued by veracity-deficient liberals.

For the record, Congressman Boehner said he would raise the benefits eligibility age to 70 for people who have more than 20 years to retirement, meaning by definition people younger than fifty.  He also said he would means-test for the wealthiest Americans, meaning that the very "fat cats" he's accused of protecting would be the ones who would lose the benefits that they really don't need anyway.

But the bigger point is that if we are going to have Social Security in some kind of recognizable form after the 2020's, we must 1) decrease the benefits paid through some combination of reducing the amount of money paid out and delaying eligibility for benefits, or 2) increase payroll and employment taxes to put more money into the system because there is no "lockbox" and very near the time that I publish this post at the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year, the Social Security Administration is moving from a regime in which outflows from the trust fund exceed inflows.