One more "canary in the coal mine" about Entitlements

Canaries in mines are old tools used to tell miners when they are in danger. Ignore them to your peril. Unfortunately, when it comes to Entitlement spending, there are no little yellow birds chirping. Yet, warnings abound about our coming peril. Here is another one.

THE FEDERAL budget is on an autopilot course to ruin. Spending on the three big entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- grows automatically, consuming a large and growing share of the budget with benefits that flow mostly to the elderly. Meantime, there is almost no public discussion about the trade-offs involved: Would the money be better spent on education, homeland security, defense or infrastructure? Even before the baby boomers retire, more than four dollars out of every ten go to these programs; if health-care spending increases at the current rate, within 40 years Medicare and Medicaid alone will amount to as large a share of the economy as the entire federal budget comprises today.

Absent intervention, the country faces three unpalatable scenarios: running dangerously high deficits, squeezing spending on other vital needs or raising taxes to levels that could threaten economic growth.