Going broke

The current administration's spending spree -- $1 trillion deficits for as far as the eye can see -- certainly present a long-term challenge to the future generations who will be responsible for paying it all back.

But the even worse news for young Americans is the refusal of Congress to do anything about the looming entitlement meltdown -- which could make the current recession look like a boom time.

On Tuesday, the federal government announced that Social Security and Medicare are in worse shape than ever before.

In just seven years, Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects each year, according to the program's trustees. Without any changes, the trust fund will be completely dry by 2037.

Medicare, meanwhile, is already paying out each year more than it collects. At this pace, it will be insolvent by 2017.

These programs were unsustainable from the start. Washington politicians have known this since the inception of Social Security during FDR's New Deal and the creation of Medicare during LBJ's Great Society. But to enact real reform of these popular entitlements would take a type of courage and statesmanship that many believe to be extinct inside the Beltway.

Instead, Americans get assurances that the problem really isn't "too bad." We get Band-Aids that don't address the structural deficiencies inherent in the programs and only temporarily postpone the day of reckoning. We get "blue-ribbon panels" whose rehashed conclusions will make fine door stops.

President Obama vowed to bring "change." He insists he will not shy away from the tough issues that confront the nation. It's about time he dipped into that deep well of political capital he now enjoys and told the American people how he intends to address the coming entitlement calamity.