It's a drag, no, it's shameful and pathetic that the best hope for keeping Social Security intact is a deadlock on the panel that's looking into butchering the most successful program that emerged from the New Deal. But, as David Dayen and Joan McCarter pointed out last week, the prospect of stalemate on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is worth a cheer. That entity didn't get nicknamed the "catfood commission" for no good reason.

There is always the chance that President Obama would veto any cuts in Social Security the Congress adopted on the commission's recommendations in its forthcoming December report. But it's far better to keep those recommendations out of the hands of Congress in the first place since 99 percent of Republicans and an enabling one or two dozen Blue Dogs would likely approve cuts. There's an alliance of progressives led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Raul Grijalva who have lined up 116 members of the Senate and House in opposition to any cuts. But welcome as that push-back is, well, you can do the math. If the commission's recommendations do make it to Congress, don't be surprised if Social Security cuts are labeled patriotic retirement enhancements.

The idiocy of taking the ax to Social Security got a good going over again Tuesday by Paul N. Van de Water. He's currently a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and he has 25 years of top-level experience at the Social Security Administration and Congressional Budget Office. He wrote:

Here are the facts. Social Security is a well-run, fiscally responsible program. People earn retirement, survivors, and disability benefits by making payroll tax contributions during their working years. Those taxes and other revenues are deposited in the Social Security trust funds, and all benefits and administrative expenses are paid out of the trust funds. The amount that Social Security can spend is limited by its payroll tax income plus the balance in the trust funds. The Social Security trustees — the official body charged with evaluating the program’s long-term finances — project that Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits through 2037 and about three-quarters of scheduled benefits after that, even if Congress makes no changes in the program. Relatively modest changes would put the program on a sound financial footing for 75 years and beyond. Nonetheless, some critics are attempting to undermine confidence in Social Security with wild and blatantly false accusations. They allege that the trust funds have been “raided” or disparage the trust funds as “funny money” or mere “IOUs.” Some even label Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” after the notorious 1920s swindler Charles Ponzi. All of these claims are nonsense. ... Moreover, Social Security is the “polar opposite of a Ponzi scheme,” says the man who quite literally wrote the book about Ponzi’s famous scam, Boston University professor Mitchell Zuckoff.

"All these claims are nonsense." No matter how many times it gets said, the privatizers, whackers and hackers of Social Security, the guys who want to transform a secure program that has reduced poverty of the elderly into a bilk-the-pensioners scam will keep repeating the lies that the program is going broke and they know how to fix it. Just chop a little here and there and let their pals on Wall Street help out with some ... uh... adjustments. The better Democrats on the campaign trail should use this opportunity to remind voters what's at stake.