George W. Bush claims that Social Security "is on the road to bankruptcy." When CNN reported this, they noted that "Democrats say that's an exaggeration of problem." Clueless as ever, those Democrats. Stuck in that old-fashioned reality-based paradigm. Bush's statement wasn't an assertion. It was a threat. Here's how you should read it: Social Security has been overtaxing workers in order to build up a cushion against future claims. This excess has been invested in U.S. bonds. When the future claims catch up with Social Security, all we need to do is to cash in those bonds. U.S. bonds are normally a safe, dependable investment, and those savings are sufficient to keep Social Security viable, even without tax increases, for a long time. So where's the problem? Well, there's no problem, at least as long as the U.S. government remains solvent.

The problem here in the Democrats' logic is that they, like every other financial planner in the world, assume that the U.S. government will always be able to service its debts. But Bush's tax policies chop away at the government's ability to remain solvent. Back in 2000 the U.S. government was running a surplus, so the excess Social Security tax could have been used to reduce the government's other debt load, making it easier to refund Social Security when the flow shifts. But Bush didn't do that: he used the surplus to fund huge tax cuts for the rich. Every years since then, even when there was no surplus, Bush pushed for more tax cuts for the rich. His State of the Union address this year, coinciding with his warning about the impending bankruptcy of Social Security, contains yet more tax cuts for the rich. Exorbitant spending on war and corporate giveaways hurt too, as does the trade imbalance and the magically deflating once-almighty dollar, but Bush's tax-cut jones doesn't leave him any other future: the U.S. government is headed for bankruptcy, and when it goes, well, Social Security's going down with it.

Bush's Social Security proposal isn't actually meant to fix this problem. It's more like what you might call a pre-emptive strike on the future. Moving tax money into private accounts adds a huge element of risk to the scenario, and that will help explain to future retirees why they won't receive anything like the Social Security that pre-Bush retirees have received: good idea, but bad luck. Of course, it's also a bonanza for Bush's patrons in the finance business, and it locks up more savings where the rich can make more money. But mostly it disabuses ordinary people of the idea that when they get old and infirm their fellow citizens will look out for them.

The weird thing about Bush's Social Security con game is that now he's pretending that we owe this to our children, when he's been totally oblivious about what the growing debt burden might mean to them. Not to mention other long-term issues, like the environment. His whole program seems to be built on the notion that end-times are well nigh upon us, so we never have to save or preserve anything. He wants to pump all the earth's oil now, chop down all of nature's tree, mine every profitable mineral. He's so short-term he leaves no prospect of a viable long-term untouched. But now we have to slice through all this pompous rhetoric about the sanctity of our children's retirement.

I've never taken proposals to privatize Social Security all that seriously, because they are inevitably too crackpot to be taken seriously. Sure, the poor and the working classes get screwed all the time, but the pain that bankrupting the U.S. government would cause doesn't stop there. Nobody gets more value from the government than the rich, and nobody stands to lose more in its meltdown. You'd think that they, at least, would start to put the brakes on their Boy Wonder.

But the other thing that bothers me about Social Security is that we're losing track of the moral basis of the program. It used to be a pay-as-you-go program, and the logic there is simple: we, as a nation, understand that we have an obligation to support the welfare of those of us too old or infirm to work and support themselves. Given that understanding, when expenses rise, we simply have to pony up whatever it takes to cover the bill. An older demographic may be a challenge to Social Security, but it cannot be a crisis. The only way Social Security can be in crisis is if we shirk our moral responsibilities. This, of course, is the very essence of Bush's political program. He seeks to convince us that we are never responsible for anyone other than ourselves, and that by exclusively pursuing our own interests everything will work out for the best. The patent fallacy of his worldview is most clearly illustrated by pointing out what a fine example he has set.