Heightening the crisis

If at first you don't succeed, ratchet up the rhetoric:

In meetings on Friday, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Representative Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, discussed redirecting public attention on 2008 as an imminent danger point for the Social Security trust fund because baby boomers will begin retiring, people present said. Even the most dire analyses say the fund will remain solvent for a decade or longer after that.

Baby boomers retiring - the new aluminum rods.

I'm not sure why, if people didn't believe you when you told them that the iceberg is coming in 20 years they would now believe you when you say it will be here in four, especially when there's no data to suggest it.

It is a sign that the White House is spooked, and they are fighting back. Now is not the time to let up.

*UPDATE* Can't argue with this, either:

"If we let the president successfully convince people there's a crisis in Social Security, when in fact there is no crisis at all, then shame on us," said Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, who as chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee presided over Friday's hearing. "We've got to fight on this issue, and we've got to wage an aggressive fight."

*UPDATE, TOO* Jerome has more.