Social Security Reform

Last night one of the local newscasts ran a story on social security reform, focusing on the remarks of Senator Tim Johnson (D) at a townhall meeting, and the remarks of a couple people who are or will shortly be retired (i.e. no one from Gen X or Y). As one might expect, none of these folks thought there was any need to get serious about reforming social security anytime soon. Why would they? As long as they get theirs, they're apparently happy.

Today, Jon Schaff at South Dakota Politics comments on the coverage the Argus Leader (the local paper) gave to Senator Johnson's remarks and the issue in general, aptly noting,

What’s the AARPs solution? Worry about it later. For all their talk about worrying about leaving debt to future generations, the AARP and Democratic plan for the coming disaster in Social Security (and even worse in Medicare) is to do nothing but pander to senior citizens. That’s leadership for ya. The question is not whether Social Security will cause us to take on debt. The question, it seems to me, is whether we want to take on a relatively small amount of debt now or a huge amount of debt in the future as Social Security goes into insolvency. I vote for the smaller debt today rather than the massive debt tomorrow.

For all the talk from some about "the children," when the rubber meets the road, the focus is on me, mine, and making sure I get it.