Krugman: The Clean Little Secret of Social Security: It's a pretty good program, and we can afford it.

[wishstar]

2. Reagan Admin began relentlessly undermining by saying program was going broke

I worked for SSA back then and noticed that instead of previous Administrations that promoted public trust and support for the program, under Reagan their new publications and official statements radically changed with warnings about trust fund running out and being depleted and not having enough money down the road to guarantee payments. And of course Congress under Reagan passed legislation increasing taxation and changing benefit formulas to lower future benefits.

The current older generation of recipients get much lower SS amounts than their parents compared to taxes paid in and if Repubs get their way again, younger folks will get even lower benefits and have to wait longer than current recipients or else see total overhaul with privatization.