Demand entitlement reform

Social Security and Medicare have long needed major reforms to bolster their defenses against the oncoming demographic tidal wave of Baby Boomer retirement. Yet elected officials intent on retaining their positions of power keep running and hiding from this challenge. Fortunately, though, this year's looming major-party presidential nominees appear refreshingly willing to take on the thorny issue.

That doesn't mean they've got easy solutions to the problems facing those massive federal entitlement programs. Then again, neither does anybody else. Simple arithmetic dictates that the only choices for rescuing those increasingly endangered systems are hard ones. The ratio of those paying money into the systems to those taking money out of them continues to decline, and evidently will do so for decades to come.

For Social Security, there are three obvious steps toward averting fiscal catastrophe under the current format: 1) raise the taxes that fund the program; 2) lower the benefits it provides; 3) raise the eligibility age.

President Bush has tried unsuccessfully to rally support for a fourth path that would give younger Americans the option of diverting some portion of their "contributions" into private accounts. That failure seems to have moved presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain away from the "privatization" concept he once favored.

Or has it? Sen. McCain, after recently insisting that he "will not privatize Social Security," added: "I would like for younger workers, younger workers only, to have an opportunity to take a few of their tax dollars, a few of theirs, and maybe put it into an account with their name on it."

Sen. McCain emphasized, however, that the benefits of "present-day retirees" would not be affected.

Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama, have predictably assailed Sen. McCain's plan as "privatization" that could bankrupt the system. Yet at least Sen. Obama, unlike nearly every Democrat who rejected President Bush's plan, has offered a counter proposal.

The cap on the income subject to the Social Security tax now starts at $102,000. Sen. Obama proposes lifting that cap at incomes above $250,000 while leaving a "doughnut hole" that would maintain the cap for incomes of $102,000 to $250,000. That's a change from his previous call for scrapping the entire cap.

Republicans, including Sen. McCain, have predictably assailed Sen. Obama's plan as a huge tax hike that could devastate small businesses in particular and the U.S. economy as a whole.

Still, beyond the party-line differences in the candidates' proposals lies this encouraging common ground: Both the Republican and Democratic White House nominees in waiting have acknowledged that the status quo is not an acceptable answer to the ominous questions facing Social Security.

Both candidates also have stressed the importance of rescuing Medicare, which is in even worse balance-sheet straits than Social Security, with fundamental reforms.

And despite politicians' long-time wariness on this issue, public demand for such action seems to be rising: A new Associated Press-Yahoo News poll reports that 86 percent of those surveyed said "protecting Social Security and Medicare should be a high priority."

It's up to the electorate to judge the merits of the candidates' proposals to provide such protection. It's also up to the electorate to insist that overdue entitlements reform becomes —and remains — a front-burner campaign topic.