It is one of the best-documented crises in history.

Each year the trustees for Social Security and Medicare issue a massive report explaining that these two critical government programs are on unsustainable paths.
Yet nothing gets done about it.

The Bush administration, in fact, has made things far worse in Medicare by championing protectionism, unreasonable regulation and giveaways to private insurance companies.

President Bush neglected health care reform as well, resulting in tens of billions of tax dollars wasted every year in Medicare as well as other federal medical programs.

On Social Security, Bush — who first won the White House promising to fix the system — has failed for seven years to do so. He never even bothered to flesh out his own “plan.”

While Bush played the slacker, the oldest baby boomers began wrapping up their careers and starting to collect Social Security benefits.

After less than a decade of that, the trustees estimate, the payroll tax that supports Social Security will no longer bring in enough revenue to cover its payments to beneficiaries. That would occur about 2017 — long before the more distant dates on which the unduly optimistic prefer to focus.

Medicare is in far worse condition. It is already outspending its own revenue, forcing the government to spend large amounts of general tax receipts on it.

This just can’t go on. Medical care for retirees is important, but the government cannot neglect its many other responsibilities while writing blank checks for Medicare.

Entitlement reform and health care reform will be among the biggest and most immediate domestic challenges facing the next president.

The leading candidates have each offered some reasonable suggestions to start curbing costs, reducing waste and putting Social Security and Medicare on more sustainable courses.

But the candidates have not focused closely on the subject, and neither have many voters. The latest trustees’ reports should spur them all to do so.