Unfortunately, we will never enjoy the sight of the politicians responsible for the Social Security swindle being sent to jail, but we can protect ourselves from their fraud.

far be it from me to defend politicians, but to characterize social security as a swindle is disingenuous at best. over the years the social security program has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty. without social security, those people would have lived, and died, in poverty.

yes, there are unfunded liabilities, but show me one pension plan that is fully funded these days. they don't have to be fully funded because the entire workforce is not going to retire at 5 o'clock next friday. and all that is needed to make the system solvent is to remove the cap on contributions. this would not affect anyone who earns less than $106,800, and it would make the system viable for decades to come. those who earn more than $106,800 would howl like stuck pigs, but they have already done very well for the past eight years thanks to the bush tax cuts, so what goes around comes around.

i wish the critics of social security would come up with an alternative, but i haven't heard anything that makes sense. the banking lobby has been trying to get its grubby paws on those funds for ages, but do you trust the banks to even remain solvent, let alone invest your retirement funds responsibly? once in a while there is talk of privatizing social security, and bush was that movement's latest champion. he would have put our retirement money in the stock market, so social security would have crashed just like our 401k plans.

i have no doubt that there will be tinkering with contributions and raising the retirement age, but if you want to scrap the entire system, first tell me how you're going to replace it.