The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
We Blame Global Warming
“Cold Dis-Comfort: Antarctica Set Record of -135.8”–headline, Associated Press, Dec. 9
Don’t Worry, We’ll All Be Dead in 90 Years
Is there a Social Security crisis? No, and there won’t be for a very long time, according to the leftist magazine Mother Jones:
Last week, the president and vice-president of the centrist think-tank Third Way accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of ignoring what they call Social Security’s “undebatable solvency crisis.” In an interview with Mother Jones, Warren fired back, countering the charge, and elaborating on how Social Security could be expanded.
“If we made no changes at all to Social Security,” Warren said, “it would continue to make payments at the current level for about 20 years,” meaning there is no immediate crisis facing the program, which assists some 58 million Americans. “Modest adjustments,” she added, “will make certain… we could increase benefits for those who need it most.”
Twenty years from now it’ll be 2033–way into the future! Which raises an interesting question: How soon is soon enough to take a foreseen problem seriously? According to another Mother Jones article, the answer is 87 years:
Here’s a list of some of the most dreaded abrupt changes (where abrupt means occurring within a period of a few decades or even years), and the probability that they’ll happen–even if nothing like the Hollywood version–before the year 2100.
Maybe they can blame global warming when Social Security becomes insolvent because 20 years seemed impossibly far in the future.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
