Quote of note:

...it's hard not to scratch your head when conservative Republican senators like Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa talk about finding new revenue for Social Security so we don't borrow fresh trillions, while the policy professionals trumpet the miracle of the free lunch. They don't call it "political economy" for nothing.

Private Accounts, and Priorities
By MATT MILLER

WHATEVER you think of President Bush's proposal to let people divert a third of their Social Security payroll taxes into new private accounts, one thing seems a mystery.

If the White House and its allies think that private accounts are such a good idea, why don't they propose paying for the fiscal hole that the payroll tax diversion creates, rather than borrowing a fresh $200 billion or so each year for a few decades? Why isn't the idea of paying for the accounts - through spending trims elsewhere, or, more likely, through some new tax stream - even part of the debate?

As Republican economists and former presidential advisers like Michael J. Boskin, N. Gregory Mankiw and R. Glenn Hubbard take to the op-ed pages to defend the president's idea, they never mention options other than borrowing, focusing instead on a defense of why outsized borrowing is nothing to fear.