Let me think about that one....
No, it's obviously not her fault (most folks didn't live to be 100 in 1937......hell, most don't live that long today).
But that's kind of the point of the whole problem with Social Security - a lot of people actually believe that myth that basically we all have a bunch of savings accounts into which we paid which we then get back. I know that when Reagan was involved with the problem when they made the changes in the early 80s, the AVERAGE person was drawing five times as much as he or she put into the fund.
At the same time, Earle's correct in that fixing that one is easier than the Medicare problem. I don't know all the details but about ten years ago my old man sat down and calculated that if you just raised every American's tax one penny per hour (40 cents a week for the union guys), you'd solve the problem. I'm not gonna lie and say I put pen to paper on that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's that easy. Washington is where they get re-elected to NOT fix problems.
One more point - I DO agree with the late Jack Germond that it's going to take a courageous second-term President who cannot be punished by the voters for what he's doing to fix it. Of course, he (or she) is also going to need the input of the Congress........and how many are willing to do that?
In 1983, a bipartisan coalition appointed by Reagan and Tip O'Neill managed (for a time) to resolve some of the problems of Soc Sec.
I cannot even imagine there being any kind of bipartisan consensus that could solve this in today's political climate. We no longer have liberal Republicans (Weicker, Javits, Hatfield, Packwood) or conservative Democrats (Boren, Nunn, Bentsen).......and the centrists in both parties can be counted on one hand. I watched several years ago when Chris Dodd was on one of the morning news programs (none of which I ever watch btw, so it must have been in 2005) and a Republican (Lindsey Graham, I think). Dodd absolutely WOULD NOT acknowledge that they were going to have to either raise the age or benefits as time goes along.....and Graham absolutely WOULD NOT consider tax increases in exchange for these concessions (that Dodd wouldn't make).
I mean......how do you solve a problem with those entrenched positions? And it's even worse now.