The Root Of Fiscal Cancer

Ben Smith wrote a few days ago about the left's "silence" over entitlement reform. Hilzoy responds:

Speaking for my personal corner of The Left: I am not silent because I am prepared to let Obama do things I would have criticized had Bush attempted them. I haven't written about entitlement reform for two main reasons. First, Obama hasn't yet said anything specific about what, if anything, he intends to try to do. And second, this is one of those issues where the details really matter.

I believe, as a lot of people do, that there is no "crisis in Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare". (See Figure 1.1 of this report (pdf)). Insofar as there is any problem with Social Security, it is not urgent, and can be fixed by minor tweaks like raising the cap on payroll taxes. We do have a problem with Medicaid and Medicare, but that is due to the fact that we have a much more general problem with rising health care costs. Spending on Medicaid and Medicare has risen less rapidly than spending on health care generally over the past decade...

Yglesias adds his own thoughts:

I’m not sure what the administration’s thinking is, but certainly I wouldn’t be silent if he were to propose draconian cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare. On the other hand, if Obama wants to get the long-term public fiscal situation in check by tackling its main root causerunaway cost inflation in the health care sectorI would applaud that.