The steps to rationalize SS are straightforward and logical.
1) Stop pouring gasoline on the fire. This means to no longer bring in new people into the system of SS-Medicare, which are paired together in the FICA tax. From a given date, all the money that would have gone to the government instead goes to private, tax free retirement-health accounts.
2) Means testing will never fly, because those who are getting SS paid into the system, and they want a square deal. So the way around this is to give them a choice. If they still earn taxable income, offer them tax credits slightly greater than the money they would have gotten from SS and Medicare, *if they want to*.
This means, if they need the money from SS and Medicare, they stay in the system that year. But if they would get more money through tax credits, saving it in the first place (many of the people who would have been means tested), then they can vie for this better deal.
In turn, this would take a lot of pressure off of both SS and Medicare, so their money would only go to the people who needed it. It also slashed the *projected* debt of these systems.
3) The biggest loser in this would be the federal government, that would no longer effectively double the income tax with the lies of Social Security and Medicare, which they then immediately spent. Which means that the federal government would *have* to cut back, perhaps as much as by 25-50%.
What’s not to like?
A "square deal" would be - once you've gotten back what you paid it, plus interest at prime over that time period, you're done. The checks stop.