The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt: History demands Obama cut Social Security

The Very Serious editorial page editor of the Very Serious Washington Post, Fred Hiatt, is Very Seriously concerned that both sides of the political debate are putting their own biased spin on the history of Barack Obama's first term, and there's only one way he can set the record straight and that's to cut Social Security. Really.

Both histories are factually correct. That coherent accounts can be written either way ought to suggest to partisans that neither version is quite the slam-dunk they imagine.

At a minimum, it ought to propel the White House to continue acting in the national interest, whichever party that seems to serve. And for a long time, Obama has said the national interest requires both revenue increases and reform of entitlement programs.

He got his tax increase on the extremely wealthy, that's done. So now the national interest requires that old and poor people put "skin in the game" and suffer. All the Very Serious People agree, and Hiatt'their official scribe'just had to remind us of that. Unbiased history, he says, is going to demand it.