Oops...Perhaps We Got that One a Bit Mashed Up

You touch on a very important point, actually, that I missed in my post here. So, I am glad you pointed it out even though your comment will unfortunately disappear (as will my response). There is also the mass increase in disability payments paid out, due in large part to the expansion of the definition of what a disability is. Learning disorders and anxiety are two that readily come to mind. This taxes the system even further as it adds to the number of beneficiaries, and of course, people on disability end their effective contribution to paying the taxes to cover benefits. When you couple the fact that baby boomers retiring outnumber the current workforce in the pool, AND take away workers who are now claiming to be disabled, (and I am not saying people should not be afforded disability benefits if they are truly disabled), it creates a perfect imbalance within the entire system that could contribute to its collapse if changes are not made to the system's administration and funding.

It has been an ongoing issue that it has been suggested there is a point at which the system could BECOME insolvent. Unfortunately, not much has been done to fix the way we fund and administer the benefits, AND on top of that, we have expanded the definition of what a disability is, removing even more people effectively from the workforce, and taken them out of the contribution pool. So, you have a bit of a double whammy here. Personally, I don't think Social Security will ever simply go away. But we're definitely going to have to rely on a different way to fund it, and that may mean taxes will have to go up in order to do that unless we can find creative ways to redirect other funding since Social Security is not paid for through the general fund. What we have, basically, is a conundrum within a Ponzi scheme that has come to a head as all Ponzi schemes eventually do. And because we did not use our time (the politicians) effectively to truly engage in solving the problem, getting to where we need to be will come with more pain, and I think more concession, than we'd prefer to have to live with. The system may have to change future benefits such as what happened with military pensions. When my dad retired, he retired at 52%. If I'd have stayed in and retired, I'd have retired with 35%. On the disability side, I think we need to do the heaviest of reforms. We have many people classified as disabled who are not truly disabled and the criteria to determine disability need to be more stringently scrutinized. I would even go as far as to suggest that perhaps disability needs to be separated from Social Security, taxed differently, and receive funding in other ways. But of course, that's for our elected people to figure out.