The Right Answer: on Social Security

John Delaney: Social insurance programs have cut senior poverty by 50%

There's nothing about the accounting that's tricky or complicated. If you look at the system like a ledger, we simply need the income line to be equal to or greater than the expenditures line-- not always, but most of the time.

If Social Security were to remain insolvent over any length of time, it would then correctly be labeled an "entitlement" program, as opposed to what it actually is, a "social insurance" program.

The program's finances are reasonably good for the near term, but the best estimates show that it will become insolvent by 2034--just 16 years from now. If we make a few small adjustments soon, we can fix the problem. If we wait, the fixes will be vastly more painful.