Reforming Social Security now will spread costs over a broader segment of the population than doing it later. But if you want to Save Social Security you should wait. The program has always chosen to confer benefits and limit costs to earlier generations by shifting costs to those who come later. So when one says "Save Social Security," it's reasonable to assume that to mean replicating this consistent historical characteristic of the program.
But if we choose to continue to shift costs to the future, we could at least show them the respect of being up front about it. I would like legislation that would require Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statements to be regularly sent to all taxpayers current beneficiaries informing them of the ratio of the taxes they paid and likely to be paid to benefits already received and likely to be received; and how that compares to the probable ratios of others over time. Maybe the public really doesn't understand about how Social Security has treated later participants so much worse than and because of earlier participants. Maybe they would care.
