GREENSPAN ON THE REAL LOOMING PROBLEM

Many wingnuts STILL claim that Social Security is "broke" or "going broke," including the President as of 9/20/07. Via the Daily Howler, I found this comment by Alan Greenspan from Meet the Press, 9/23/07:

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe either political party has stepped up to the crisis we face with Social Security and Medicare in the coming years?
MR. GREENSPAN: I do not.
MR. RUSSERT: How big a crisis will that be?
MR. GREENSPAN: Social Security is not a big crisis. We’re approximately 2 percentage points of payroll short over the very long run. It’s a significant closing of the gap, but it’s doable, and doable in any number of ways. Medicare is a wholly different issue because, remember, right now, with the current entitlement, we can afford Medicare. It’s easily refunded. We’re going to double the size of the retired population. And by all of the analysis I go through in the book, it’s very evident to me that we are not able to actually deliver on the Medicare we are promising, and I think that is marginally unethical to immoral because we are promising to people who have not yet retired a fairly significant Medicare package which, if they knew they weren’t going to fully get, they would take actions now—maybe retire later, do different things—and I think everybody has been avoiding this issue.