Kaus gets mugged.

"A conservative as a liberal who has been mugged by reality." Mickey Kaus has changed his position on social security.

Democrats charge that Bush's proposed benefit cuts are vicious, and that they don't fix Social Security's solvency problem. But if even vicious cuts don't fix the problem, doesn't that mean the problem is a bit bigger than the Dems have been letting on? I believed Social Security wasn't in much trouble at all--just needed a few "tweaks"--until I looked at the tweaks the Two Peters were proposing. In addition to the benefit cuts outline above, Diamond and Orszag have the current 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax rising to 15.4 percent in 2078 and continuing to rise "slowly over time thereafter."

He thinks we should be more like Australia and reduce spending on future retirement benefits. I agree. We should worry about saving money, not about saving government programs.