The Big Question for Friday, Jan. 9:

Obama says he wants to reform Medicare and Social Security–will he have more success with Social Security than Bush did?

See all responses here.

Michael D. Tanner, Senior Fellow, The Cato Institute said:

Give Barack Obama half a point for courage. By warning that Social Security and Medicare are ticking fiscal time bombs, the president-elect took on one of his party’s most prized shibboleths–the idea that there is nothing wrong with those programs that repealing the Bush tax cuts won’t fix. After all, hardly any Democrat anywhere campaigns without attacking his Republican opponent for wanting to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

But to get full courage points, Obama would have to come up with an actual plan to reform the two troubled programs. So far, he hasn’t. The Social Security plan he put forward during the campaign, a 4 percent payroll tax hike on those earning more than $250,000 per year, would give the United States one of the highest marginal tax rates in the world. This would have devastating economic consequences, but would do almost nothing to extend Social Security’s cash-flow solvency. Plus, candidate Obama actually called for increasing Medicare’s prescription drug benefit.

In the end, there are only three ways to fix Social Security: raise taxes, cut benefits, or allow private investment. For Medicare, taxes, premiums, deductibles, or copayments will have to go up, or benefits will have to go down.

When Barack Obama makes a choice from that menu, we’ll know how many points to give him for political courage.