no politician -- on either side of the aisle -- is seriously proposing cuts to Social Security or Medicare.
Not true. Paul Ryan did, and even got into a fairly public fight with Paul Krugman about it [1].
http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/
[1] The fight was mostly over matters of little substance - Krugman told a few lies about Ryan which blogger Megan McCardle repeatedly debunked. The substance of the proposal was not discussed. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru...