Reply #5: actually, there isn't a problem at all

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social security retirement is a well-funded retirement insurance program that the banana republicans want to raid. plain and simple.

the fact that there's currently a huge surplus, which has been loaned out to for general expenditures through the purchase of treasuries is irrelevant. it's a fund with a huge amount of assets, namely, treasury securities, and the banana republicans want to get their grubby paws all over that loot.

left alone, without change, the program lasts another 40+ years without changing a single thing. allow a few modest changes, like tweaking the retirement age, and it lasts 70 years. these are very large time frames for pension plans. this is NOT a retirement program in need of a "solution".

privatization is a bad solution in search of a problem, and causing fear is the banana republicans' forte, so they wail that the sky is falling and the fund is unsound, so that they can trot out their "solution", and drain the fund of the very assets that make it so sound in the first place.