Krauthammer not happy with Bush

I actually think it's a good thing when conservatives criticize their own party. It keeps us fresh and dynamic as opposed to stagnant and shrill like the Deaniac Democrats. And Krauthammer says what has to be said, that the social security is doomed and that the president's idea, while nice, won't solve it. What a happy idea to start the weekend. We have to reform the system. There is no free lunch. Private accounts are a fine idea for other problems, such as dependency and transferability to heirs. They are irrelevant to the solvency problem. We would have to raise taxes or cut benefits -- or borrow, endlessly and ruinously. The Democrats' plan is to stick their heads in the sand. The problem is that every year we allow to go by means that the reduction in benefits or the increase in taxes will have to be larger. If we had started this in the fat years of the 1990s, we could have done it at reasonably low cost in benefit cuts and/or tax increases. We now have 13 years rather than 20 or so before the system starts bleeding red. That is why the president's 2042 date is so disastrous. It makes it seem as if the problem is very far away. True, he mentioned 2018, but bringing up 2042 simply muddies the logic. It reinforces the idea that there really is a trust fund from which we will be drawing to pay the elderly for the quarter-century between the years 2018 and 2042. There is not. It is just paper. As much as I love giving away money for nothing, I really would like all the money social security sucks out of my paycheck back when I retire in 40 years. Let's get that fixed sometime this decade shall we?