THE OLD REPUBLIC
Red White & Blue and Shot to Hell
The immediate solution, what could have been done long ago, is painfully obvious and pathetically easy.

Stop stealing the money and either:

1) Rescind the overcharges. Reduce payroll and other entitle-ment taxes to break-even.

2) Put surpluses in real trust funds, preferably managed by people in the private sector not above the law.
The government has no need to tax people for more money than it needs, to produce enormous profit/surpluses, or to run contingency funding. Our forefathers saw to that when they gave the federal government power to borrow in the public's name. In the event of a shortfall, Treasury securities can be sold to investors via the "bond market" and do so in a matter of days. The taxpaying public would then be responsible for the redemption of these securities just as we are now.

The alternative, putting surpluses in real trust funds, would be more than twice as good as the system that now plagues us, even if the money is not invested. By their very nature, real trust funds are already lock-boxes.

Still, the subject of possibly investing Social Security and other entitlement surpluses in anything other than the stock market has never been openly discussed or debated. Most politicians conveniently hide behind their own spin story about Social Security being the "third rail" of politics.

For instance, Social Security could probably hold every single family mortgage in the country competing effectively with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack and the like. There are all sorts of investments from becoming a bank in its own right and perhaps even replacing the Federal Reserve to buying gold or investing in business ventures and/or other nations. These are the subjects of sound investment houses like TIA-Cref.

President Bush suggests "personal accounts" similar to the Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees, but he suggests this only for young entry level workers at the bottom of pay scales leaving the bulk of surpluses for the government to continue stealing.

What's more, something similar to the Thrift Savings Plan would be a disaster for American industry. Instead of lump sum payroll tax payments, letting the Social Security Administration determine benefits from IRS W-2 form history of each retiree, employers would now have to report each employee separately plus allowing them to switch options at will. The paperwork alone would burden employers and probably cause increases in consumer prices.

None of the big pension houses allow individuals to specify where their money is invested. Even Milton Friedman doesn't tell SURS where he wants his money invested.
ARTICLES:

WARNING; Social Security Red Alert