So basically Obama and the Democrats got down on their Knees and suck

US demographics look good going forward--better than almost any other nation. Social Security is also one of the best government programs ever devised in our history. It has arguably done more to alleviate poverty than any other program. It still has a $2.5T surplus, and even with no adjustments wouldn't peter out till roughly 2039. With minimal adjustments they could keep it solvent 30 years into the future.

It's really a silly thing to argue about. The world will be far different 30 years from now. Some argue we will reach the singularity--changing the definition of what it means to be human. Others picture "The Road." Either way, medicine and life expectancy will be far different than they are today. Creating a system that will be solvent farther into the future than 30 years is just guess work.

Personally, I love Social Security. And I'm not that old. I couldn't afford the economic burden of taking care of my aging parents if they didn't have social security.

During this whole debt crisis we sat down for a minute and planned out what we would need to do if the government shut down and they lost social security. While we had options, there would have been significant consequences. Far, far more without Social Security than with Social Security.

While I agree with Chester, I think it is foolish to believe that social security will be around for the long term.

Yes, it is solvent. However, that is not its problem.

Its problem is that I view this country as having enough people who completely distrust government that they will disassemble it whether it makes sense or not.

They feel very little obligation to the old, and will paint them all as being the wealthiest generation in our history.

As they dismantle it, they will uniformly state that "you have been warned for years that you should have been saving for your own retirement. You are the fool for depending on this system; I am not evil for reducing taxes on those who work"

Ready?

I'm not so sure whynot_31. The AARP is still a strong organization. My parents have become extreme liberals (former Reaganites) since retiring (far to the left of me), because they decided to devote the rest of their lives to service. And they love the AARP. My Aunt and Uncle are staunch Bible thumping conservatives (to the right of the Tea Party) and they love the AARP. Old people vote like no other section of the population. Like it or not, I think we are stuck with Social Security till at least the next generation. Medicaid and Medicare are another story. I think it may go down as one of the great ironies in US history. If Obama is reelected, and financially speaking he likely will, the same President that tried to pass universal health care could preside over the systematic dismantling of government funded health care in the US.

I think people who paid in are entitled to pay out. We have to leave their shit alone. What needs to be done is reform for us. Redefine the parameters of SS, from how its paid for, to whether or not one can opt in, to when one becomes eligible to cash in on it. I mean let's be honest... 65 today is nothing like 65 in FDR's time. Or w/e the entitlement age is. We have to redefine the parameters of SS to reflect the realities of the US & people in the 21st century.

Boygabriel said:

Agree for the most part.

And not to subvert the point, but if we could pair this with real, actual health care reform, bringing health care costs back into a reasonable stratosphere, it would make all of this way easier to stomach, and way more effective.

The scope of this task is daunting. I don't think the world's greatest minds could hash out all the details in an apolitical vacuum by December. So the fact that we have the likes of Mitch "our objective is to make Obama a one term president" McConnell on the case makes the future look that much more bleak. But I agree that the US is rich enough to keep SS alive in some form, and work out some kind of all encompassing single payer healthcare system. It will just take brains and the political suicide pilots to do it.