Over at Salon, Michael Lind has a lengthy critique of my column on how the welfare state is destroying America (the first in the Washington Examiner’s five-part series). Lind uses some harsh language, titling his article, “How conservatives lie about government.” He accuses of me of being “intellectually dishonest” and a “right-wing propagandist” who is part of an effort to brainwash people about the nation’s debt. I’m going to take a few moments to respond, because it’s an important debate that deserves more elaboration than I was able to provide in one 600-word column. But I won’t engage in such name calling.

Let me start with a relative area of agreement. Lind argues that rising health care costs are a bigger problem to our budget than the aging population. I agree, and nowhere in my piece do I say differently. In fact, in a paragraph that he even quotes from, I mention both issues: “With health care costs rising and the population aging, America’s welfare-state obligations are bringing the country to its financial knees.” The Congressional Budget Office also cited both issues in its June 2011 long-term budget outlook: “Two factors account for the projected increases in outlays for the government’s large entitlement programs: aging of the population and rapid growth of health care spending per capita.”