He was wrong. Both men, raised on FDR's grand promise, were wrong. Since its birth in 1935, Social Security has benefited from more than 20 tax increases all in the name of sustaining its solvency, all in response to continuing crises. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program. Guardians of the system were reassuring.
Today there are three workers for each beneficiary.
By 2030 the ratio will be two to one. The Great Reckoning will arrive. Late last year, the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security proposed three remedies to what will avail the system in 2020 when the trust balance begins to decline. And, pushing the envelope further, the advisory council's third option, Personal Savings Accounts, is a two-tiered system that would rely on the markets. While the advisory council could not agree on a unifying solution, it examined the role equity markets can play in bringing the program into balance.