For example the “demographic” shift of the baby boomers going into retirement should have been offset by the PRODUCTIVITY gains that the baby boomers generated over their working lives. In addition, the dependency burden was greater for the pre-baby boom generation than it was for the baby boomers and will be for the post boomers and workers are having fewer children. There is plenty of money in the society to take care of aging boomers. This has NOTHING to do with the number of retirees. That is the canard from Peter G. Peterson and his paid shills and minions whose goal it is to destroy Social Security.

In addition putting Social Security “on budget” will only permit greater raiding of the system. The so-called “unified budget” was done in 1969 by Johnson in order to hide the cost of the Vietnam war. That’s how the U.S. reported a “balanced budget” that year.

There was a reason why FDR made the SS tax regressive. He wanted workers the FEEL the burden of paying the payroll tax so that they would DEMAND a return knowing that they paid into the system and contributed to their own retirement. What happen, unfortunately was that the Greenspan commission over charged the payroll tax in order to make up for the shortfall due to Kemp/Roth — the 1981 tax cuts for the rich.

If the author was being historically honest he would demand a rollback of the 1981 tax cuts and return the top tax rate to 70% and restore the 14 tax brackets that captured higher end income. That would be one way to curb the Wall Street bonuses.

There’s more but I’m short on time.