What it sounds like you're saying is that the seniors aren't all that far off-base in perceiving a risk to their payments. Regardless of how true that perception is, they can not deny that the risk to them will not be greater if younger people are allowed to do with their own money as they wish, instead of being required to invest it in a government-approved index. Its effect, or non-effect, on the seniors is exactly the same either way, so there's no greater political liability in letting the younger set keep the 4% themselves and do whatever they judge best with it.
Of course, but only if they don't trust that the Bush plan could be carried out with an absolute guarantee that the seniors SS will continue unchanged. (Note that this is all Bush ever said.) He did not say that medicare would stay the same, or that senior lunch discounts would not be taken away.) The fact is that seniors have been told that Bush will not keep his promise (about SS) not that there are other benefits that may be affected. The fact is that if the government reaches the point of paying out more for SS than the payroll tax brings in then other programs will automatically be affected or taxes will rise which is another impact to the individual and the economy. All things are related once you accept that SS funds go into the general fund anyway. Seniors don't accept this either, because they believe a pack of liers who only care about how seniors vote. Republicans have been painted as villians and enemies of the elderly for so long that its a matter of faith to them. My thesis remains unchanged no matter how you posit the question. The seniors are in the AARP grasp and Bush can make speeches till he is blue in the face. (He can even trot our Barbara and say thay he would never do anything that would hurt his mom, but it won't work. As for the world changing and seniors having to live with the changes. That is a truism whether SS is fixed or not. (And is true regardless of how it may be fixed.)