Social Security

Robert M. Ball is one of the most revered figures in Social Security history, a man whose devotion to safeguarding the program from ideological attacks and political cant over six decades made him the program's  "undisputed spiritual leader. " Alice M. Rivlin is a distinguished budget expert at the  Brookings Institution  whose willingness to promote "entitlement reform" (read: cut benefits) as a deficit nostrum has given her a reputation as a danger to Social Security and  Medicare . So when Rivlin was named the ninth recipient of the annual Robert M. Ball Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Insurance this week, Social Security advocates erupted in fury.

The headlines are scary: Social Security is going bust. Social Security is nearly bankrupt. True? Not really. Here are the facts: The combined Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2033 , three years earlier than projected in last year's annual report. The Social Security disability insurance program "faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds," according to trustees. It will exhaust its trust fund in 2016, two years earlier than projected last year.

It's a benefit cut . It's not merely a "technical" change. It's not a "more accurate" measure of inflation. The "chained CPI" has become one of the linchpins of the debate in Washington over what to do about the cost of Social Security. The idea is to ratchet back the annual cost-of-living adjustment provided to recipients by basing them no longer on the standard consumer price index, but this new creature. Its virtue, supposedly, is that it points to a slower inflation rate than the unchained index, by about .3% a year.