Why we need entitlement reform

Ed Morrissey nails it:

When programs like Social Security and Medicare first began, most Americans weren’t expected to live long enough to draw benefits for more than a couple of years.  In the fifty years since Medicare began, we have lowered the age of eligibility and massively expanded benefits.  Not only do we have more people entering the system thanks to the Baby Boom of the postwar years, but thanks to better health, they’re staying in the program for at least fifteen years at a time.

Meanwhile, population growth has slowed in the eighty years since the start of Social Security and fifty since Medicare.  Instead of having worker-to-enrollee ratios of 16-1, we’re rapidly approaching 2-1, which turns the entitlement structure into a teetering Ponzi scheme.

And let’s also be clear about one thing–this is exactly what Democrats want.  Nothing gets millions of voters to the polls to pull the lever for Democrats quicker than promising the continuation of the current state of affairs.  Democrats and the Obama administration have shown no desire at all to seriously address the question of reforms, nor our government’s fiscal emergency.

Americans will eventually have a choice–continue biting on the Democrats promises of an ever-increasing entitlement state, or trying to avert disaster.