Social Security: Viking Pundit has been Johnny on the spot lately on what passes for policy discussion in Washington. Here he is parsing Rahm Emmanuel, whom the Dems sent forward to spin on the subject this weekend.

My take on this is pretty simple, and it might surprise you. The GOP says, let's do private accounts. I'm for it, but the tiny amounts they're proposing to "privatize" are insulting. Meanwhile the Dems say that any privatization will result in unfunded mandates (which we have anyway, but I see their point) so we should, at the most, go for a typically Washingtonian and meaningless "reform" package based on accounting sleight of hand, maybe with a split-the-difference adjustment to the cost of living increase.

As I said, this may surprise you, coming from a libertarianish conservative, but what we need to do is raise taxes. Raise the payroll tax by a point. Raise the level at which payroll taxes cut out, too. (With an automatic sunset provision, by the way -- something that should be standard in every spending bill.) But -- and it's a big but -- raise payroll taxes only in conjunction with real reform. By which I mean the increase would pay for significant privatization. Second, we've gone long enough without means testing benefits like Medicare and Social Security. Remember all the rich and famous waterheads during the election who thought it was politically astute to say, "George Bush gave me a tax cut. I don't need a tax cut!" Well, why the hell aren't they saying, "Congress gave me generous Social Security and Medicare benefits. I don't need those!"

I'm not deaf to the several good points being made on the left -- and there are several, even if they're not being made very often. So I'll put my money where my mouth is: Raise my taxes. I'm unlikely to see benefits from Social Security, and I'm a little old for microscopic privatization measures to make any difference, really. So as long as I'm eating Tender Vittles in my golden years, I might as well advocate the idea that I be the last one to do so. While my desire would be to kill the program entirely, I know that's not going to happen. As long as it exists, it should, to the greatest extent possible, exist as a choice. The only road to that is to stop lying about how we fund entitlements.

Pay for it honestly, or kill it.