By Chris Farrell

The footsteps of an aging America are hard to ignore, especially with daily alarms ringing over the federal government's debt and deficit. The leading edge of the baby boom generation is reaching its retirement years and at the core of the long-term fiscal challenge lie the three main entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. (The other main spending items weighing on the fiscal ledger are defense and interest on the debt.) Spending on entitlements is growing faster than the economy and revenues.

"This debt is like a cancer," said Erskine Bowles, co-chair of President Obama's bipartisan panel on deficit reduction, at the annual meeting of the National Governors Assn. on July 11.

Little wonder...