The idea that the social security system will be fine until 2042 sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. The government has been purchasing bonds with social security money and it will need to borrow more money to pay that back when baby-boomers start tapping the system. My guess is that such an event will be well before 2042. After that additional borrowing/taxation ends, then the social security system will be really screwed.

What I don't get is why democrats are so afraid of freedom and choice. Nobody would have been given a private investment account of their own unless they asked for it. Everybody else could have stayed in the old system (which I doubt they would have). Unfortunately statements like this perfectly illustrate how Democrats can't think about anything seriously:

Janskeet said:
but it is just an excuse to put it stock market or something, give it a way to filter back to the rich.

Who, in this day and age, honestly thinks Democrats are out to protect them from the rich? What a bunch of bullshit. The Democrat leadership just passed a 700 billion dollar plan of crap to bail out all of their stupid, rich friends who got rich via government spending and regulations (as apposed to honest work). Not only that, they were bailing out themselves: most of our legislators are rich and have a lot of money invested in the firms which stand to lose money (after Democrats encouraged bad investments). What a fucking joke and the American people are the butt.