Everything makes sense except raising the retirement age for full benefits. This presupposes other resources available to individuals to allow them to hang on until full payment is possible. Further 30 to 40+ years of work, half a lifetime, seems enough to allow workers to pursue other paths and let younger workers move into their place. The solutions should not change present promises and stop moving the goal post to levels that bring economic pressure to those who have worked and contributed so much to our society.

I agree with OETKB. Those who advocate raising the retirement age never explain where all the jobs for 60+ year old workers are going to come from. One thing the current depression has made clear is that older workers who loose there jobs will not find another.

If raising taxes is necessary to "save social security," why should the burden fall disproportionately on upper-middle class wage earners? E.g., raising the FICA threshold from 110k to 150k is going to be a much bigger income loss proportionately to someone earning 150k vs. someone earning 400k. It is not as if the 150k earner is going to receive any additional benefits vs. the 400k earner. Why is this "fair"? And let's not even get into the person who earns their money from "capital gains" and would contribute absolutely zero. Why not "save social security" from an across-the-board increase in income taxes? Or, better yet, enact a VAT.

FICA is, essentially, a regressive tax. So it's not going to be fair unless the tax rate increases for higher wage earners. Nobody ever thinks that's going to happen. So, it's never going to be "fair" in that sense. The fairness comes because higher contributions create higher pay outs when the worker retires. So, yes, the very high wage earners won't "feel the pain" as much. It would be great if the SS tax rate covered all wages without a limit. Then the rate could be lowered, but that isn't going to happen in our lifetime. There are too many selfish people out there. Someone who earns their money from capital gains and doesn't pay into Social Security will not get anything from the Social Security system when they reach retirement age. They will, most likely, continue to look for capital gains to live. This situation covers a very small number of people who have inherited wealth and don't work. Most people who have capital gains also have jobs or had jobs that paid into the system. Increasing the income tax revenue and putting that money into the retirement system would be more fair. It also would be more complicated and there would be too many opportunities for redirecting the new money elsewhere. A VAT would be very regressive and it would hit lower income folks the worst which would affect the economy the most. Many states don't have a system in place to collect a VAT or a sales tax so that would make this solution much more complicated than those that are proposed. Like new income tax revenue this new money could get redirected to other pet projects too easily. Expanding the current system is the most practical and has the most likelihood of success.

Reforming social security is not in the cards, gentlemen. The president is silent on the subject. Mr. Romney will try and be vilified, no doubt, by Mr. Obama, himself, and his media lackeys. Can't wait for Romney lookalikes tossing grandpa into a dumpster, or some other reasonable facsimile to Ryan's-grandma- over-the-cliff ads. If Obama were serious about entitlement reform, he would have acted accordingly on Simpson-Bowles and stepped away from the new entitlement of Obamacare, but he did not. Roosevelt, Jr and Reynolds' plan will suffer similar neglect, unless the go-along-to-get-along crowd is sent packing.

Oh, puleeeeze: Social Security can be fixed by reinstating the original goals and purpose for the development of the program. Secondly, the government MUST stop raiding Social Security funds for other purposes. Presently, there are too many federal agencies and departments raiding Social Security funds.

Give me a break. Roosevelt another guy making about $500,000.00 from a nonprofit commenting on anything is a joke. The plan would be forever solvent if we ended all the addons that steal money from the retirees--END THE PHONY SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILTY SCAMS-EVERY DRUNK/DRUGGIE AND NUTCASE IS PUT ON THIS. Stop all the other hidden payments to children, etc. Let the program only work as a retirement system! The original plan works well--the only adjustment that should be made is to have everyone pay the same %rate on ALL earned and unearned income.