The fact is that Social Security and Medicare taxes are the least unpalatable taxes for the average citizen taxpayer; the Great Prevaricator discovered this from the get go and successfully shifted the tax burden from his wealthy sponsors to working citizens. Nearly all the "solutions" offered in the lapdog media involve some combination of limiting benefits [outflows] or raising taxes [income] and thus generating surpluses which must be invested in the national debt - which not too coincidentally went ballistic during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton big government eras involving the idiotic counterproductive war on [arbitrarily illegal] drugs and the equally nonsensical cold war. Even the lapdog media centers have identified 150 billion in corporate welfare which usually involves propping up profits of companies engaged in questionable and/or unethical business practices. The political sponsors will not allow a pleibiscite on the budget; if it did, most polls would indicate a much different citizen friendly budget which would leave many parasites without much in the way of taxpayer cash. A warning to all taxpayers: when you hear the terms "Social Security Reform" from a mainstream pol - watch your pocketbook!