When it comes to the looming deficits in Medicare and Social Security, Congress is like a child who thinks something unpleasant will disappear when he covers his eyes.

But the deficits aren't going away. They're just getting closer.

The latest annual report from the trustees for the programs, released last week, was discouraging but not surprising. The finances of both programs are expected to deteriorate as the huge baby-boom generation begins retiring. Medicare faces the additional pressure of rising health-care costs.

The trustees projected Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund would be depleted by 2018, two years earlier than they forecast just last year. They also projected Social Security's trust fund would be exhausted by 2040, a year earlier than last year's forecast.

But the trust-fund balances understate the fiscal problems in both programs. Those balances represent the claim that the programs have on federal revenues, not money in the bank. Already, payroll taxes for Medicare are not generating enough dollars to cover its hospital benefits. Likewise, Social Security's payroll taxes will fall short of covering its benefits by 2017.

As the gap between payroll taxes and obligations grows, huge tax increases, draconian spending cuts, massive borrowing or some combination of the three will be needed to raise enough additional dollars to keep Medicare and Social Security afloat. That's unless Congress and the president agree on changes to cut costs in the programs, raise revenues, or both. The longer they wait, the more drastic the steps that will be needed.

Last year, President George W. Bush kicked off a campaign to reform Social Security by proposing that workers get the choice of setting aside part of their payroll taxes in investment accounts.

By the time he belatedly suggested reducing the growth of benefits for middle- and upper-income Americans — an approach that would directly address the program's long-term funding gap — his political opponents decided they had more to gain from opposing any changes than offering alternatives.

In his State of the Union speech this year, a chastened Bush called on Congress to create a bipartisan commission to consider changes in Social Security and Medicare. But Congress has failed to take up even that suggestion.

Some congressional leaders, instead of just ignoring the problem, are denying it. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid insisted the trustees' report shows that "Social Security remains sound for decades to come." Say what?

Ignoring or denying that Social Security and Medicare are in trouble might be good politics for now, but it is shortsighted and selfish. For future generations, the price of inaction could include sharply higher taxes, slashed benefits and a lower stand-ard of living.

Surely today's members of Congress don't want that legacy.