Understanding why "Mediscare" works, and why the GOP needs to reply with clarity, honesty, and ideas

Ryan Streeter
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This post at the WSJ economics blog sheds a bit of light on why a good many Americans are prone to respond to fear-mongering on entitlements in just the way Republicans hope they won't: they aren't prepared for the future.

The post cites a study that's new, though it's based on data from the summer of 2009. Here are a few of the key findings:

• In spite of the demise of pension plans “the majority of Americans have not done any retirement planning,” Prof Lusardi writes. Only 42% of those surveyed said they have tried to figure out how much to save for retirement.
• Among those who are 45 to 59 years old, 51% said they had yet to calculate how much they’ll need.
• Only half of those surveyed said they had rainy day funds set aside that would cover them for three months.
• When it comes to credit cards, nearly one third of respondents engaged in a behavior that resulted in an interest charge or fee.

These, along with other data points in the paper, don't paint a catastrophic view, in my opinion. But they do show that a sizeable portion of the American public is suseptible to one of two manners of thinking:

1. Some are simply unreflective about the future because they feel "things will somehow work out." Threatening their sense of security by changing entitlement programs might give them less reason to think things will work out and set them against reform.
2. Some are actually counting on entitlements to provide security, and of course trying to change the programs will upset them.

Some people simply cannot prepare for the future because they're scraping by. But the others who aren't scraping by but are also not thinking too much about the future will likely oppose entitlement reform if they think they'll be getting less than what the programs give out now.

The challenge, of course, is to communicate broadly to the public that the choice between reform and status quo is a false one. Rather, the choice is between reform and higher taxes/lower benefits. That's the challenge for the GOP going forward.