Republicans need to be a taught a painful but needed lesson: Social Sec, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA - imperfect things that WORK..... and you don't have a true turnkey alternative. So get behind it, or tossed on your behind.

In my 30's I was onboard withe the following deal:

My employer would continue to pay their portion of my SS tax for the SS account but I would get to keep what was paying, to be directed to a federal account that I could manage. Call it $11k/year for argument's sake. The only SS payout I would get would be from the $11k contribution - the government kept what my employer contributed.

Let's say this plan would have kicked in when I was 35 and I would have worked for 30 more years and stopped at age 65. Let's let the growth compound:

At 2% growth I would have had $580k, at 5% I would have had $1.1M and at 8%...$2.2M. That's a nice retirement at less money outlaid by the feds (as I would have dropped off the retirement rolls as far as they're concerned).

But now, with me nearing my mid-50s? No deal. They can pay me according to the current SS schedule (around $40k).

Which represents a less than 2% return when you consider that they had both what I contributed and what my employer did.

All that goes to show that SS isn't really a retirement system, it's mostly there as a stealth tax on higher earners to help pay for the retirement of others. Which is fine..but as the math shows, it could be done more efficiently albeit with more risk.