The other was a remark by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.), who told the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal it was time for Americans to "come to grips with the fact that promises have been made that frankly are not going to be kept for many."
Cantor may have been mostly focused on Medicare - in particular, on House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's proposal, already passed by the House, to dump the current Medicare system for people now under 55. Instead, future seniors would get "premium support" - vouchers to buy private insurance that would, depending on your faith in the health-care marketplace, either force medical costs to moderate or leave less-affluent seniors with increasingly inadequate coverage.
As he has before, Cantor said the goal was to protect those nearing retirement while putting everybody else "on notice." "The rest of us have got ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust to reality here when you look at the numbers. Again the math doesn't lie," Cantor said.
Yup, math doesn't lie. But politicians often use it in misleading ways, especially when they talk about costly, popular programs such as Medicare and Social Security and are mesmerized by the magical notion that, whatever the nation's needs, taxes can only ever be adjusted in one direction: down.
And there may be no better example than the latest simplistic plan - distressingly backed by voices from both sides of the aisle - to "fix" Social Security by changing the way benefits increase over time to account for a rising cost of living.
