“SS is payed to all the non-working lazy assed people who come to the US knowing they can get it with ease” is completely false on every level. Social Security is not “paid” to anyone who hasn’t “paid” into the program for ten years at a minimum. Social Security Disability Benefits are paid to younger workers who may have a shorter employment (and hence pay-in) period depending on their age but the eligibility requirements are very strict and the application process can take years. So, “non-working” – wrong. Gotta work for a long time: don’t forget that’s 10 years worked but you still have to be at least 62 to collect any retirement benefits under Social Security. “Lazy-assed” – wrong again: more like workin’, workin’, workin’ all those years. Then we have, “Who come to the US knowing they can get it with ease” – is the most foolish assertion of all. You can’t work (legally) unless you are a legal resident of the United States with a green card. If you are working under the table, you’re not paying into Social Security and thus not entitled to collect anything from it.

Which, if what I can try to understand from your parting shot, Bill, when you said “only those that put in should be the only one to get it back and put tight purse string the system” is in fact the way it works: only those who contribute get paid. So, other than sharing your dislike of people who, on the whole, work much harder than do native-born Americans, doing jobs Americans won’t do, and usually for lower wages OR who emigrate here and have highly skilled jobs like designing software for Microsoft, hopefully at higher wages than they’d make at home and who thus pay high taxes to the United States atop their Social Security contributions, what have you said?

Social Security will never go away. It can and should be tweaked to reflect different realities from those that existed during the Depression when it was set up, but no Congress will face the electoral wrath of the more than 50 million Social Security beneficiaries, most of whom are not disabled, just older and who vote at rates far higher than the population at large. And how do they vote? Against anyone who tries to decrease or even limit their benefits, that’s how. Trying to cut benefits (especially to the Tea Baggers) would be political suicide.

Any shortfall issues would disappear if the cap on earnings taxed were removed. Mr. Blankfein at Goldman Sachs made $330 million dollars last year. Why should he only make Social Security contributions on the first $106,800 of income? But of course, Congress is afraid of the rich who pay for their campaigns, so that won’t happen either. And those 20-somethings who think it’s a crock? When they begin to realize that after paying their college loans and their mortgages and then the college tuition for their kids that they’ll then have to start supporting their aging and impoverished parents, well, the clamor to increase Social Security benefits will be louder than anything you’re hearing now about reducing them.

I’m 60. I’ve been hearing about the imminent collapse of Social Security since I was in my 20′s. It’ll be here until I die and I plan to live a long, long time.