Dan Calabrese

I see the TV spots, and you probably see them too. It’s a parade of senior citizens, addressing the Republican candidate for Congress in their district, exclaiming “How dare you?” and “Shame on you!” for supposedly wanting to privatize Social Security.

“Social Security is a trust!”

“I depend on Social Security to get by!”

“If you don’t believe in Social Security, then how can we believe in you?”

Watch it, sonny!

And on and on and on it goes. The Democrats don’t appear to have much hope, but if they have any, they appear to think that this is their best hope. The proposition is pretty straightforward: Democrats will guarantee your Social Security. Republicans will put it at risk. Vote Democrat.

And by offering such a proposition, Democrats reveal something about the way they perceive risk. To them, the only thing that imperils Social Security is the meanness of certain Republican politicians who would dare change it from what it is today – a birthright guaranteed by government forever and ever and ever, world without end, amen. It’s a perfectly simple world in which there is one dichotomy at work: A Democrat will vote to give you Social Security, therefore you will get Social Security. A Republican will vote to take it away, therefore you will lose it.

It must be nice to have the kind of absolute power Democrats seem to think they have. Because they can vote to guarantee anything they want. They can vote to guarantee you housing and food for life. They can vote to guarantee you health care. They can vote to guarantee every American a moon rock. If it passes the House and the Senate and President Obama signs it, the guarantee is the law of the land.

And the fact that it’s the law of the land doesn’t mean a damn thing when the resources necessary to fulfill the guarantee don’t turn up.

In 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, there were 46 Americans paying into the system for everyone drawing benefits. People didn’t live as long back then, and we hadn’t seen several generations’ worth of cost-of-living increases to the benefits. Also, Congress had not yet decided to raid the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for its profligate spending on other things.

Today, there are only three Americans paying into the system for every one drawing benefits. The Trust Fund is bare. People are living longer. The system is unsustainable, and along with more recent entitlement innovations Medicare and Medicaid, is part of an unfunded national entitlement obligation totaling $58 trillion. And that’s before you factor in the national debt of $14 trillion and whatever the cost of ObamaCare turns out to be if it is not mercifully repealed.

These obligations have America so screwed, you’d need a power drill to free us. The reforms that will be necessary to prevent national bankruptcy will be so dramatic, it’s hard to imagine the politician skillful enough to sell them to the electorate at large – certainly to seniors – which is why few today even try. Republicans who talk in the abstract about cutting the size of government don’t dare mention the one thing that must be first on the list, cutting entitlements, because they don’t want to be the target of one of these ads featuring the fire-breathing seniors.

Entitlements are going to be cut. Entitlements must be cut. America does not have the $58 trillion to fund them and never will. The only question is how it will be done, and what will take their place. Grandpa Elroy can yammer on all day long about how Social Security is a trust, but it doesn’t matter a hill of beans when the money won’t be there to keep the promise the trust represents.

And yet, to Democrats, the only thing required to keep the trust forever is them in office, refusing to accept any change, blocking any reform, denying all reality. Somehow the money to keep paying these benefits will magically appear without Americans having to show up at the fruit market with a wheelbarrow full of cash to purchase a banana.

That, Democrats think (and many of you believe), is the power of government. I promise, I vote, therefore it is. Just keep believing that, and keep watching for those checks.

And hope to God that death gets you before reality does.

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