It's time. Soc Sec needs to be expanded to age 50. If Congress cannot provide a job before

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. That should be a long way down the list of spending priorities, frankly.

Yes, America is a long way to the left of the peak of the laffer curve, and can and should raise taxes somewhat without inflicting too much economic harm on itself, and it could also afford more domestic spending by cutting military spending. Neither of those is at all likely to happen, of course, but lets assume for a minute that one or both of them did, and America had more money to spend on domestic projects.

The first priority should be education, and that could soak a *lot* of extra spending before running into diminishing returns; the second should be health care. After that, I'd look at better unemployment benefit, and possibly at better pensions for the over-65s.

Lowering SS to 50 would be so far down my list of priorities that barring the unexpected discovery that Mount Rushmore was made of solid diamond, I would say there are better things to spend the money on.