Fighting and going broke together

Today's must-read is Megan McArdle with "Saving Social Security":

This article by Paul Starr makes the central error that comes over and over again in liberal analyses of Social Security: it acts as if the general budget problem arrives at the same time as social security's budget problem.

This is wrong. The budget problem isn't in 2041; the budget problem is now. Sometime after next year, the Social Security surplus will shrink, starting to put pressure on the budget. Democrats trying to implement spending plans will start to find their tax increases eaten, not by national health care, but by seniors. By 2011, the problem will be large. By 2017, money will be flowing from the general fund to social security. By 2025, the hole will be about as big as it's going to get. Around about 2015, social progressive plans will be DOA. Republican tax schemes will be DOA. The only thing we will talk about for the following 15 years is where to find the money to pay for Social Security and Medicare.

[snip]

But where he's wrong is to think that Democrats have some choice in the matter. They don't. They, like their political opponents, are going to see most of their dreams crash on the shoals of the Baby Boomer retirement.

Opponents of reform like Josh Marshall want to paint the entitlement reform movement as a Grandma-starving scheme dreamed up by the Right to push through tax cuts, but we're all in this leaking boat together. As Megan points out so eloquently, there won't be money for tax cuts, there won't be money for education, there won't be money for defense, roads, food stamps and all the other things we call "the government." We're heading down a road where the primary function of the government will as a cash way-station, taking taxes from workers and send 'em off to seniors (SS), hospitals (Medicare) and banks (interest on borrowing).