This didn’t happen over night and it’s basically busted. People know this.
Either we make changes around the edges and whistle past the graveyard, or we can have something good come from this and make it something other than our money passing through government fingers and out the door to someone they want to attract to their camp. Government needs to get out of our way and stay away from our earned resources.
I see this as an opportunity, not as a problem.
I agree that we can’t whistle past the graveyard. But what we as citizens, and the government, have to do is expressly recognize social security for what it is:
a system in which current payors are basically contributing to the retirements of current recipients.
Once we recognize that reality then we can start substantially reducing the benefits without hurting current recipients (via age eligibility/means testing/reduced benefits for items not directly involving monthly payments), start reducing the FICA payments, and provide tax credits to enable us who are in our 50s and younger to better save for our own retirements (or, at the very least, have a large percentage of the FICA tax actually deposited in an IRA account in which the contributions are invested by court approved fiduciary/trustees for income/growth with the suitable investment mix dependent upon the individual’s age).