'Reform' Social Security? No, replace it

There's no question that Social Security is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Yet some in the White House, who put President Obama's re-election before the public good, are playing politics with the issue.

The White House denies any internal controversy over Social Security. But The Hill newspaper reports there's a rift between Mr. Obama's economic and political teams.

The economic team favors modest "reforms" -- raising the retirement age from 67 to 68 by 2050, revising cost-of-living adjustment calculations to reduce payouts and raising the limit on income subject to payroll taxes.

The political team sees such steps, which would reduce benefits, as disastrous for Obama come 2012 -- and is winning the internal debate.

But while the political machinations are inexcusable, the economics advice the president is getting is nothing more than kicking the can down the road again.

America must begin an orderly phase-out of wealth-robbing Social Security as we've known it and begin phasing in wealth-building personal accounts.

There's no other way. And President Obama and his warring teams should feign no surprise when the same American people who stripped Democrats of their House majority in November set their sights on Pennsylvania Avenue in November 2012.