How to save Social Security

I think a combination of things need to be done but I'm definitely not in favor of privatization. I realize most of you here will disagree with me but I think Social Security needs to remain as a government program. "SECURITY" is the key word here. No, I don't think the "government can take care of me better than I can take care of myself", but that safety net needs to be continued, at least for anyone who is already in the workforce or better yet, anyone who has already been born. My point is, most of us don't even remember a time when Social Security didn't exist. It's something we've all grown up thinking, or at least HOPING would be there for us when we retired. Sadly, it's needed much more today than it was even just a few decades ago since fewer companies offer any pension at all let alone one someone could hope to survive on exclusively. One could say it's all our own responsibility to save for retirement, but there are millions who did just that only to have their savings disappear either because they unexpectedly and through no fault of their own became unemployed, because of an illness or injury or because it was simply lost to bad investments. So, how do we save it? I know nobody wants to even discuss this, but I think a time will come when the payroll tax is going to have to be increased slightly. What I feel is the best solution is for wage earners to pay into Social Security all year on all of their income and not have it end at $110,000 or whatever the current amount is. Next, I understand the argument for raising the retirement age since life-expectancy has increased since SS began but the fact is that increase primarily benefits the higher income workers more than blue-collar workers. Maybe working past 65 or 66 doesn't seem too awful for a banker or an accountant but try doing it if you're a construction worker or a letter carrier. Anyway, the bottom line is although many will say it's "not fair" for the higher income workers to pay more into SS without increasing their monthly benefit, I think it probably often ends up being more than fair since those with the more physically demanding jobs will likely live fewer years on SS and therefore collect less in total. Means testing is another idea which will also be met with a lot of protests that it's not fair to the wealthy but I think some kind of compromise or incentive could be worked out if those in power put their minds to it in a non-partisan manner. One thing about Social Security, Medicare and other programs for the elderly - all of us, whether we're liberal or conservative, have or had parents and grandparents and all of us, if we're lucky enough, will one day be one of the elderly. I think that's a pretty good incentive in itself to try to come up with a solution we all can live with although none of us will get EVERYTHING our own way. Annie