The Ant and the American Grasshoppers

With Social Security facing a long-range shortage because more people are retiring and less income is available to support retirees with inflation-based benefits, does it strike you as strange that both the President and the Republicans want to continue the reduction of "payroll taxes" (note that they don't talk about this being the funding for Social Security)? This short-term view (put a little more money in people's pockets now and leave the bankruptcy of Social Security for some miracle worker to solve in the future) is typical of our culture. This situation reminds me of Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper, and we Americans are the grasshoppers!