Getting closer but not close enough to satisfy Brad DeLong

The Press is rapidly de-bamboozling itself on press conference day plus 2. The Washington Post has a graphic showing how super rich you have to be to get your benefits cut under the Bush plan here

Jonathan Weisman has an article reporting a generally negative reception for the Bush plan on capital hill. He seems to have access to someone with access to a spread sheet
(I should have been careful what I wished for here). However, he has a bit of trouble with logic writing "Workers earning as little as $35,000 a year would lose a quarter of their promised benefits by 2065, although their benefit under progressive indexing would be 11 percent larger than the check Social Security could afford to issue by then." Hmm so how is Bush going to have the SSA pay a check larger than it can afford to pay ? He is not suggesting tax increases (after a brief flirt with raising the $ 90,000 ceiling) and concedes that private/personal/modernized/new age accounts would not reduce the shortfall (which they would increase by about a trillion). Weisman is assuming that the do nothing till the fund is exhausted plan must be followed by proportional reduction in benefits rather than progressive cuts (just as I suggested for a moment there again) Also, of course, he is using the social security administration trustees cooked projections.

Now the last time I predicted that Brad would have to be satisfied now with Weisman I got a link so I am tempted to entitle this one "Brad *must* be satisfied now." Sadly, I am not satisfied myself.

Update: Matt Yglesias scooped me by 4 full hours.