Like any Ponzi scheme, those at the top are getting far more out of the system than they contributed. It is very difficult to reduce benefits for people who believe that they earned the right to the benefits and don't consider them to be taxpayer provided subsidies.
” It is very difficult to reduce benefits for people who believe that they earned the right to the benefits and don’t consider them to be taxpayer provided subsidies.”
It has been in the past, and will continue to be (for this election cycle and the foreseeable future) politically impossible.
The winning political position is to say “it can be saved in it’s present form” - it matters not that this cannot be true for the reasons you point out.
SS Reform (reduction in benefits as you posit) will only come when the choice is between “something” and “nothing” after there is some fundamental financial disconnect that cannot be ignored.
Until then, actual SS Reform is political self-immolation to anyone who proposes it.