Sorry, as a lifelong liberal the only problem with Social Security is that nobody understands what it is and why it is blowing up and this is true of Republicans and Democrats.

In part this is because it was originally sold as if it was some kind of annuity or savings plan-- because presenting it as if taxpayers were paying their own money for their own benefit was salable, and presenting it as money you are taxed for to pay someone else not to work is not.

It is and always was pay as you go social insurance, not an investment plan. It was not intended to fund retirement -- it was intended as a safety net to keep people from falling from poverty into total inhuman degradation.

There is no "trust fund" in the sense people tend to imagine it. There are notional US Government securities which the SS adminstration "owns" but which are in fact nothing more than numbers of dollars which will have to be funded by ongoing taxation and/or borrowing.

Neither is it a Ponzi scheme. It's a system of transfer payments in which receipts (taxes, borrowed funds) are transferred to recipients. It is sustainable when input=outlay. When input in taxes > outlay the extra input gets spent on other things. Now input from taxes < outlay and this inequality is growing.

As long as the Federal government continues to take on more debt to keep input from taxes + input from borrowing = outlay, all will be well (as far as SS is concerned). At some point that borrowing will probably fail to raise enough boodle to balance the equation, and then it will be necessary to chop the other end. There will be a weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments that day for sure.

But I don't see either R's or D's actually trying to get ahead of this.