Robert Samuelson gets one thing right in his diatribe on the entitlement crisis facing America: It is a real problem and cannot be ignored. Oddly enough, however, Samuelson puts the blame on Washington think tanks — the very institutions that are bringing public attention to the situation. Here’s a snippet of Samuelson’s criticism:

Washington’s vaunted think tanks — citadels for public intellectuals both liberal and conservative — have tiptoed around the problem. Ideally, think tanks expand the public conversation by saying things too controversial for politicians to say on their own. Here, they’ve abdicated that role.

Had Samuelson bothered to leave his cozy office, he would have realized there is a “public conversation” taking place. It’s called the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, and with participants from the Concord Coalition, Brookings Institution, Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and my employer, the Heritage Foundation, it has made 23 stops in 21 states to shine the spotlight on the problem. David Walker, comptroller general of the United States, is also part of the tour and was subject of a praiseworthy article in the Washington Post, the same newspaper in which Samuelson’s column appears today.

The tour isn’t the only thing think tanks are doing. Brookings has a project called Budgeting for National Priorities, and here at Heritage we’re constantly producing easy-to-understand materials (one of Samuelson’s other criticisms). And Stuart Butler, Heritage’s vice president for domestic and economic policy studies, testified before Congress about solutions to our long-term fiscal challenges.

There are 11 more Fiscal Wake-Up Tour events slatted for the rest of the year, including one in Baltimore, a short drive from Samuelson’s Washington office. I hope he takes the time to check it out.

UPDATE — 9:41 p.m.: David Boaz of the Cato Institute says his think tank “accepts the challenge” proposed by Samuelson to shed more light on the entitlement problem.