Maybe he didn't, but the article says: " He wants middle- and high-income Americans to see their benefits grow more slowly and the poor to see their benefits grow more quickly. "
How is that idea anything other than redistribution/welfare?
Look it’s already socialism. It’s got Social right there in the title, and is a direct transplant by FDR of principles from the German Social Democrats going back to the time of Bismarck.
Social Security IS socialist already. The problem is that it’s structured in a way that is completely unsustainable to government finances. The government, in the American system, is the same as the citizens. There is not a separate entity called THE GOVERNMENT. There is only us. We have created this mess over a few generations and we have to fix it now.
When we have a program that a vast majority of people think is basically here to stay and beneficial, socialist or not, but that program is actuarially unsound it needs to be changed in a way that either the revenues into the system are increased (bad) or the funds paid out are decreased (bad). So between these two, the tweaks, and be clear about that we are talking about microscopic tweaks, not “skyrocketing” benefits for the poor and slashing benefits for those who paid in more, the tweaks ought to address the fact that life expectancy has increased enormously since the program was created, and to further acknowledge that there are so many policies designed to boost the asset values of the wealthy, that they have done very well through asset price inflation.
So raise the retirement age slightly and gradually, and reduce the growth rate of benefits to a chained-CPI for everyone except the lowest income segment.