Paul Samuelson's column on Social Security is a breath of fresh air:

Opportunities for gradual change have been squandered. These public failings are also mirrored privately. I know many bright, politically engaged boomers who can summon vast concern or outrage about global warming, corporate corruption, foreign policy, budget deficits and much more—but somehow, their own Social Security and Medicare benefits rarely come up for discussion or criticism. Older boomers (say, those born by 1955) are the most cynical, hoping their benefits will be grandfathered in when inevitable cuts occur in the future.

This is the end game of the welfare state. It was started, allegedly, out of good, altruistic motives. It is being maintained, even as it heads towards disastrous insolvency, out of sheer greed. And this is bipartisan greed.

Samuelson does not draw any major, anti-welfare state conclusions from this. I do. This strikes me as the inevitable result of democratic pandering in a representative republic that has abandoned constitutional limits.

Is there any solution, now, but major reform?

Or open up the doors to under-30something foreigners, and let them and their spawn pay the taxes that will choke native-born American youngsters in the very near future?

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