I wonder if Dionne shorts the paperboy too

I can see it now: “What are you complaining for, kid? I gave you 70 cents on the dollar!” Anyway, here’s resident WashPost liberal E.J. Dionne regurgitating the talking points of the DNC in “Feeding the Crisis”:

Bankrupt? Collapsing? That is nonsense. By 2042 (or 2052, according to the Congressional Budget Office), Social Security will still be able to pay between 70 and 80 percent of promised benefits -- which, because of wage indexing, would be higher in real terms than today's benefits.

Truly spoken like somebody who doesn’t have to worry about collecting his benefits. But say you’re a 27-year old worker today and you’re expected to pay into the Social Security fund for forty years. All through your years of labor you receive statements from the SSA telling you what your expected benefit would be and maybe (foolishly) you plan for your retirement using these estimations. Then BAM! by law the benefits are automatically cut by 30%.

Ah but Dionne continues: stop yer whining, crybabies! Even that 70% benefit is higher in real terms than today’s benefits. But isn’t this exactly part of the problem in funding Social Security? Wages typically rise faster than prices such that Social Security payments in the future will be approximately 40% higher in real terms (constant dollars) than they are today. If Social Security benefits were held constant by indexing to prices instead of wages, the system would be solvent well into the 22nd century.

As a columnist for a national newspaper, doesn’t Dionne bear some responsibility to look at the other side of an issue? This one is straight from the office of Ted Kennedy.