1. Define very clearly what SS is. We need to be clear that it's an agreement between the working class and the retired class that says "if you are too old to work and you can't afford to live, we will take care of you"

2. Get rid of the SS tax cap. You don't pay any SS tax above 180k ish, which seems silly. Get rid of the cap and let every earned dollar participate in the program. It doesn't feel like that hard of a sell.

3. You don't get SS payments if you already have enough income. See #1, the agreement. We are agreeing to take care of you if you need it. Many, many retired persons do not need their SS income. Even if you paid SS tax your entire life, see #1. It is not an agreement that you will receive the money you put in later in your life.

Those aren't popular ideas but they are simple and easy to understand for everyone.

Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt.

Social Security was made when there were ~130:1 worker:retiree ratio, now its closer to 3:1 and getting worse. The budget is largely an exercise in transferring money from the younger to the older. Unlike when SS started and the older generations were the poorest, right now they are the richest, so its an exercise in making the richest generations a bit richer at the expense of the current working generations.

Since debt is now a large part of the US budget, this represents the retiree generation (again, the richest generation!) borrowing from even farther in the future to give themselves more money.

There is no solution that doesn't confront this. The old are eating the young at an accelerated pace. People will say things like "But seniors are on a fixed income" as if that didn't represent most people, more or less, or justify the sheer scale of the wealth transfer.

The most realistic solution is that we would have to stop all kinds of benefits to already-rich people and make it solely and exclusively on poverty reduction for the retirees that are in fact poor.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

The situation is similar to what it was in the late 1980s, and it can mostly likely be managed with the same level of spending restraints we saw in response to that.

Starting with Reagan, taxes cuts corporations and the rich has been the main driver of the debt. And I will add to that, falling wages for the middle and lower classes based upon inflation.

I found the Concord Coalition [0], and their sister organization Concord Action [1].

I haven't done enough research to endorse them, but I'm just saying: they exist and this is their issue.

[0]: https://concordcoalition.org

[1]: https://concordaction.org/

Bad headline. No biscuits.

How about reversing the Trump Tax cuts or clawing back the tax holiday for bringing back profits hidden overseas.

The result of “fiscal restraint” amounts to acceptance of premature death for millions. Likely acceptable to a country that has accepted excess COVID deaths and support for genocides in West Asia, East & Central Africa, and South America. I only hope that boomers turn to anarchist resistance and disruption.