Best way to reform Social Security?

[A18]

Your post contains no critique of his position.

Anyway, complete abolition should be the goal. But at the very least, the wage-indexing formula should be replaced with simple price-indexing.

[A18]

The program has been very successful at transferring large amounts of money from the young to the old on a yearly basis. The claim that the program has "singularly . . . transformed the status of elderly Americans from one of destitute poverty to one of middle class solvency" is not nearly so obvious. I'd like to see some hard data on this transformation in living standards. In particular, the notion that "elderly Americans" are or ever were a homogeneous group, with a single financial status, defies common sense. But why, in any case, assign so much credit to Social Security? The earliest generation doubtless benefited, but modern-day retirees had to pay into the system their whole lives, making its net effect on retirement income ambiguous.

The bottom line is that Social Security is a program that takes money from the young, rich or poor, and gives to the old, rich or poor. There may be some justification for a program that exclusively supports needy seniors. But Social Security, as we know it today, is not that program; it is an arbitrary and immoral substitute.