Social security should be privatized.

"So, any time we think something must be done about a particular problem necessarily means that we will make bad decisions? How else is change accomplished if not through the conviction that something must be done to fix the problem? This is a fallacious appeal to authority on your part." Nice try Snoopy, but you missed the point of the quote altogether. Webster's point was action in response to conviction or passion doesn't always yield the desired result (Iraq is a good example of this). Your conviction to destroy social security without much of a real understanding of the impact and cost of such a transition proves Daniel Webster's point. One such example is the concept of disability, one area that social security provides for. In your zeal to abandon this government program, millions of disabled citizens would lose their disability benefits. Now, I'm sure if given the choice to contemplate that fate, you would likely argue for some revision to our efforts to abandon social security to at least make sure these folks didn't lose what is likely a lifeline of income for them. The cost element still hasn't been resolved, though I do realize that you probably care little about this vs. obtaining the result you desire. I do care, as we are already saddling future generations with mountains of debt under this current administration, adding 4-11 trillion more would exacerbate the situation far greater. As for Chile, some of your analysis is correct, but it proves my point when it comes to risk for our citizens. While I agree that the Federal government isn't independent of market performance, it is far more so than the average private account. Most of social security is invested in government bonds, which even today are probably the safest investment that can be made (less so if we continue our debt patterns, which feeds my argument above). I know you've asked for my "fixes" to social security, but I don't think that is germane to the topic, nor do we have time to address it given that this is the last round. However, for the sake of clarification, two of my fixes would lie in raising the cap on current tax levels as well as raising the cap on investment levels so that the trust fund could perform better in periods of economic growth. What you haven't answered that is germane to this topic is how we achieve such a transition. I've highlighted the costs, to which your only answer is they will get worse. That doesn't improve the case for this drastic of a move. The transition to the private system you advocate would be violent, and economically difficult to achieve. I completely agree that people need to change their approach to retirement. Social security should become a much smaller portion of their retirement portfolio, as FDR has originally designed (it was only supposed to be a supplement for poor retirees). Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as you propose, is far too risky in todays economic climate, especially with the escalating costs of health care for retirees. Privatization may be an option at some point, but today we need to stabilize the patient before we're willing to get rid of it altogether. Too many people would suffer otherwise.