Social Security: demographics or politics?

I think the economist Dean Baker has some very good arguments for why social security is not in "objective" trouble, but faces stiff political problems.

The most basic point is that social security is not actually in trouble (he gives a few pieces of evidence: trustee reports that insist on full payment at least for the next 40 years, the fact that the program makes a surplus, and the fact that it is always lumped together with Medicare - and burgeoning health care costs are the real problem that demographics poses - although even this is not precisely a demographic problem, but is mediated through the structure of the U.S. healthcare system)

The deeper point is that the productivity of the American economy is plenty to provide an adequate safety net. The greater elimination of social protections (especially important for the working class) is not natural law, but political decision.

Please feel free to offer opposing evidence.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/time-is-on-our-side-the-survival-of-social-security


http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/035468oped.html


http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/035468.html