by CHRIS COX AND BILL ARCHER
A decade and a half ago, both
of us served on President Clinton's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and
Tax Reform, the forerunner to President Obama's recent National Commission on
Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. In 1994 we predicted that, unless something
was done to control runaway entitlement spending, Medicare and Social Security
would eventually go bankrupt or confront severe benefit cuts.
Eighteen years later, nothing
has been done. Why? The usual reason is that entitlement reform is the third rail
of American politics. That explanation presupposes voter demand for
entitlements at any cost, even if it means bankrupting the nation.
A better explanation is that
the full extent of the problem has remained hidden from policy makers and the
public because of less than transparent government financial statements. How
else could responsible officials claim that Medicare and Social Security have
the resources they need to fulfill their commitments for years to come?
As Washington wrestles with
the roughly $600 billion "fiscal cliff" and the 2013 budget, the far
greater fiscal challenge of the U.S. government's unfunded pension and
health-care liabilities remains offstage. The truly important figures would
appear on the federal balance sheet—if the government prepared an accurate one.
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