There are “three national pastimes” in Washington D.C., Brooks informed us: baseball, apple pie, and Congress raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. And the GOP just didn’t want to let that happen.

You thought you were paying excess FICA so there would be money when you retired. No. You were paying excess FICA so rich people and their corporations could have massive tax cuts. S&P should have limited its downgrade to the bonds in the Social Security Trust Fund. Those are never going to pay off.

You can view Social Security accounting two ways: First, you can view it as a separate fund, in which case the Trust Fund surplus of $2.5 trillion is very relevant. Or you can view the issue from the perspective of the entire budget, and ask, “how much of the total is paid for by total incoming revenues?” But what you can’t do is mix the two; you can’t honestly switch between the two accounting perspectives just to make a political point about Social Security.

If there were actually a real, looming Social Security crisis—say, for example, without reform by the end of the year, Social Security checks would be cut in half—only then might there be a political case for agreeing to an unpopular compromise. Fortunately, this is entirely not the case. There is no Social Security crisis at all. Without any changes, the fund will be able to pay full benefits for the next 30 years.

Looking at the current political environment and gaming out the possible actions that could be taken it seems abundantly clear that progressives best course of action on Social Security is to simply refuse to even think about allowing any changes in the program. Progressives should also follow Harry Reid’s advice by sticking to this “just say no” position for decades to come.

Matt Bai has a NYT article ostensibly about Democratic Congressman Earl Blumenauer and his willingness to cut wasteful spending to reduce the deficit — no news there — but Bai turns it into a dishonest hit piece on the Social Security Trust Fund.

It’s open season on Social Security and the WSJ is coming out shooting, in its news section.

The market has been extremely volatile of late. An investment 10 years ago would have yielded almost no gains, and would have absorbed a giant loss in 2008. Too much of the stock market these days is ruled not by efficient capital flows, but high-frequency trading and other forms of gambling, none of which will be ameliorated by the financial reform bill. Putting 10-15% of the trust fund into that casino could result in lower returns or even losses from the safe investments in which it’s currently exposed.

The French face the same demographic problems as everyone else. Their approach to a solution is to think about the principles that led to their system, and figure out how to solve the coming problem in light of the goals of their society.

President Obama says nothing, even Social Security, is out of bounds for deficit reduction. This time he has to choose: average people or the rich. There isn’t some foolish compromise out there that will bring bipartisan support. There isn’t any way to triangulate against the dirty hippies. It’s us or them.