The defining feature of the Bush administration in its second term appears to be its inability to adjust to reality, its unwillingness ever to acknowledge that it has lost a fight. Foreign policy in Iraq is the prime example, but now the administration is returning to domestic policy fights—notably to the battle over Social Security, where it already has been whipped.

The strategy the administration adopted in 2005 and 2006 toward Social Security reform was to try to panic the public into believing that a crisis is imminent unless we act without delay and then to urge that guaranteed benefits be replaced in part by private retirement accounts.

This effort to privatize Social Security failed for two main reasons. First, there is no imminent crisis. Social Security still is running a big surplus, building up its reserves every year. Nobody projects that it will exhaust those reserves sooner than thirty years from now; most estimates place that date even later. Second, while the public likes the idea of private saving on top of guaranteed Social Security benefits, it is rightfully frightened at the idea of giving up its guaranteed benefits, which are already among the lowest of any advanced country. What is more, privatization alone can do nothing to solve the financial problems projected for Social Security.

A real fix of Social Security is possible, now, or in five or ten years. History and common sense suggests that it should involve some increases in taxes devoted to Social Security and perhaps some modest reductions in benefits for some retirees. The total adjustments needed to guarantee that all promises will be met for the next hundred years are not great. They are far less than the tax cuts the Bush administration engineered in 2001 and 2003.

The basic reason we need some reform is that our population is aging. With a larger proportion of the population retired, we need to use a bit more of our income to guarantee the same minimum to every retiree. It ain’t rocket science.

Instead of acknowledging that adjustments may be needed both on the revenue and the spending side, the administration has opened the 2007 discussion of Social Security with exactly the same tactics it used before. First, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, contributed to an unwarranted sense of crisis by pointing out that total entitlements are rising rapidly. (Mr. Bernanke failed to point out how small Social Security’s share is of the total projected increase.) Then Vice President Cheney reiterated the administration’s absolute opposition to any adjustments on the revenue side. These old dogs aren’t learning a thing.

The Social Security debate will go nowhere this year, and for very good reason. First, there is no crisis that requires an immediate response, and second, without compromise, there is no basis for a solution.

What retirees in thirty years will need is an economy big and strong enough to pay its workers good and rising wages and at the same time to deliver on Social Security’s modest guarantee of a dignified retirement. The way to achieve such an economy is to invest today in new technologies, education, and growth-promoting infrastructure. Instead, we are wasting our treasure and our future workers in a hopeless military adventure. This is the greatest tragedy, our real reason to worry about our future.

Bernard Wasow is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation.