Social insecurity reminder

In 2008, Social Security took in $63 billion more in taxes than it paid out in benefits. In 2009, that surplus plummeted to a mere $3 billion, due in large part to the lousy economy. Rising unemployment numbers have reduced the amount of money coming into the system. Rising retirement numbers, with many Americans being more or less forced into early exits from the workplace, have increased the amount of money going out of the system.

But while those (presumably) short-term trends are troubling, a long-term demographic trend will be much more costly. Even when the economy recovers, the system remains on a foolish fiscal track that will take it deeply into the red within the next few decades as roughly 80 million Baby Boomers shift from entitlement contributors to entitlement recipients. The only way to rescue Social Security -- and Medicare -- from financial ruin is through fundamental reforms.

So though the remarkable decline in the annual Social Security surplus from 2008 to 2009 qualifies as surprising news, the inevitable bottom-line debacles awaiting it and Medicare do not. Anyone capable of doing simple arithmetic -- and willing to face the hard truths of a protracted, persisting drop in the workers-to-beneficiaries ratio -- could long ago see that those massive federal entitlement programs were unsustainable without comprehensive transformations.

Those needed makeovers grow more costly with every passing year of inaction. Something's got to give, likely on both sides of the funds collected/funds dispersed equation, or the system will go bankrupt.

That dire outcome will occur even if Washington stops robbing the Social Security trust fund. Nor has that regular raiding kept the regular federal budget deficit from rising to record levels, and the White House budget plan predicts another $1.6 trillion in red ink.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, told USA Today of the steep decline in Social Security's annual surplus: "The moment of truth has arrived. This is a wake-up call."

Yet many key players in Washington, in both parties, still aren't answering that alarm. For instance, a proposal for a bipartisan commission on entitlements finally got the backing of initially reluctant President Obama last month. However, it then stalled out in the Senate when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., retreated from his earlier support for it. Though the bill to create the panel passed by a 53-46 margin, it fell seven votes shy of overcoming a filibuster threat. Sen. McConnell was among the 23 Republicans, including South Carolina's Jim DeMint, voting against it. They were joined by 22 Democrats and one Socialist (Vermont's Bernie Sanders).

Clearly, far too many of our elected leaders still lack the political courage to address the growing entitlement mess. Until the American people demand overdue overhauls to save Social Security (and Medicare), those programs will keep accelerating toward balance-sheet oblivion.