Reply #26: horsehockey. reagan doubled payroll taxes in anticipation of this [View All]

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social security has accumulated a huge surplus in order to handle this wave of retirements.

given that the nature of the program is that current workers finance the retirement of current retirees, there's always the potential for a mismatch one way or the other, and so there may be a need for MINOR adjustments to keep things in line with shifting demographics, but certainly nothing obscene like destroying it entirely.

reagan's doubling of payroll taxes was a radical hike, and no one's really happy about it -- the right hates social security at all, and the left hates that it's such a regressive tax, and doubling it made it noticeably painful to many. but it did make social security solvent and that's how to address the problem -- FUND the program properly, one way or another, not throw it out or turn it into a joke.