Borrow and Cut.

It's becoming clearer just how the Bush administration and Republicans on Capitol Hill intend to pay the hundreds of billions (maybe even trillions) of dollars it would cost to partially privatize the Social Security system. (Such a move entails short-term costs, because some of the money that currently goes into paying benefits for today's retirees would have to be diverted to personal investment accounts.) First, there's no way around a huge amount of new government borrowing. But watch out for the second part of the payment plan, too: "Some conservative analysts and Republicans in Congress say a portion of the temporary financial gap that would be created by personal accounts could be closed through measures like holding down the growth in overall government spending," the New York Times reports. This year's near-freeze on domestic spending is beginning to look like a walk in the park.