Medicare

One of the most daunting things about the long-term federal budget problem is that the programs that are in the most trouble -- Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- are also running on autopilot. Unlike the rest of the budget, Congress doesn't vote on these programs every year. They're driven by formulas, not by conscious decisions by policymakers.

The good news from the Social Security and Medicare trustees is that things haven't gotten any worse. The bad news is that the situation was bad anyway.

The Social Security and Medicare trustees' report is due today, and my first question is: will Medicare be the lead of anyone's news story today?

In the world of federal budget politics, February may end up being the month of Medicare. And not a moment too soon.

There are a lot of elements to the nation's fiscal problems -- rising health care costs, the government's willingness to accept deficits as "normal," the fact that the government spends more in interest on the national debt than it does on Iraq. But most of these budget problems are slow-boiling worries.

It's all Iowa, all the time, on cable news today as the first real voting of the presidential primary season begins. Iowans will have survived months of listening to presidential candidates talk about what they'll do if elected.

Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, has an op-ed on the long-term fiscal situation in the Wall Street Journal today -- it's today's must-read budget article, although unfortunately it's behind the Journal's subscription wall.

According to the New Republic's Jonathan Chait, the nation's capital is in the grip of "entitlement hysteria":

David Brooks may not have been specifically thinking of Facing Up to the Nation's Finances when he referred to "Entitlement People" in today's column, but he was certainly talking about people we know.

The buzzworthy budget-related news this week comes from Alan Greenspan taking President Bush to task in his new book. But you don't need me to write about Alan Greenspan's book.