Balancing the Budget

Here's a video by Bill Whittle that explains the budgetary mess we're in more clearly than anything I remember seeing.

Having explained the problem, the eventual solution becomes blindingly clear.
Refrence here is Chilie, about which I've written before. The social security program there is privatized, mandatory, and vastly superior to what we've got. We could impliment something like this here by phasing out the current system and phasing in the new one.

That won't happen because the current system creates a population dependent on the government for its very existence, which means the population will vote for those who promise to sustain that system.

In Chile, Alberto Fujimori was able to implement his privatized variant because when he took over, the country was flat broke and couldn't pay anyone anything. Since all was already lost, there wasn't much objection to his trying something new, and it worked.

When something can't go on forever, it won't. Sooner or later, the system will crash and at that point we'll be able to make the needed repairs, but at that point, a lot of people are going to get seriously hurt.