Here’s a political proposal that sounds reasonable: Fix struggling government entitlement programs by cutting the benefits of rich people, who don’t need them anyway. How about it, Jon Huntsman?

“Well, let me just say on entitlements – across the board, I will tell the upper income category in this country that there will be means testing,” Huntsman said in one of the New Hampshire GOP Presidential debates last weekend.

Huntsman isn’t alone there – several other GOP presidential candidates have endorsed cutting entitlements for the wealthy, and President Obama has flirted with it, too. But as seductive as it sounds, the math on means testing entitlements just doesn’t work, because there aren’t enough wealthy seniors to solve the long-term problems of either Medicare or Social Security.

I explain the math at Reuters Money.

Tags | Medicare, Social Security