The Liberal Entitlement Conference

There are plenty of reasons liberals should like today’s entitlement summit. My colleague, Elana Schor, notes them here and TAP’s Ezra Klein here. Bob Greenstein, head of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, made the liberal case for alarm in his remarks. He notes that the problem is primarily a health care problem If health care costs could just be brought in line with economic growth we’d be largely okay. “We will need to act before mounting debt and interest payments make this problem worse than it already is. The mere fact that Greenstein has such a prominent role addressing the conference ought to be of comfort to liberals. If that wasn’t enough, OMB Director Peter Orszag made it clear that “health care reform is entitlement reform.”