With apologies to the Beastie Boys, Obama is crafty, he gets around...

Whenever he says something with confidence, it's because he knows he cannot be pinned down on it.  In his interview with O'Reilly he makes the statement that Social Security is in better shape than Citibank.  This may be a true statement, but that's like saying someone with terminal cancer is in better shape than someone having a heart attack.  The death of the latter may be imminent, but is not certain; the death of the former is certain but not imminent.

His opposition to privatizing Social Security is yet another indicator that Obama doesn't get the challenges that face his would be constituents.  He views the issue as binary - we either cut benefits or we raise taxes.  The baby boomers shudder at the thought of reduced benefits, while younger people shudder at the thought of higher taxes (if only some of the 45 million babies aborted over the last 36 years were alive and in the work force, maybe we would have a bigger tax base...but I digress).

Social Security is facing the same problem that many coporations are facing. Defined benefit plans are attached to increasing life spans and younger retirement ages, and the strain is breaking the back of many companies.  For example, I work for the same company as my father.  When he started working for this company in 1965, the actuarial tables predicted a life expectancy of 72 years, meaning that when someone retired at age 65 they would live on average for 7 years.  However, my father retired at age 51.  He's already been drawing his pension for 14 years, and God willing, he will for at least another 35.  But this illustrates how the burden of the defined plan has put extreme pressure on corporations and the government alike.  The automotive industry is under increasing pressure from it's pension burdens; the steel industry is being crushed by it's obligations, several airlines have turned the pensions over to the government to manage (for a fee, of course), and Social Security will be out of money by 2045 (this assumes there's enough money in the treasury to pay IOUs taken against the Social Security pool).

There is a third option that the left ignores, I believe, because it removes government from the equation  That option is to priviatize Social Security.  There's no easy answer to this one, but it is certainly not an unsolvable problem.  You would have to have an economist work the numbers, but one way is to divide the labor force into three segments. 

• The first, either retired or retiring within say, 15 years (so age 50 or older), will retire under the current defined plans.  No changes, no need to get all worked up over lost benefits. 
  
• The second group would be people who are under age 50 down to age 30.  The employer contributed portion of their social security taxes will go to the current social security pool, for which they will be eligible for a reduced benefit when they retire.  Their personal contribution (the FICA entry on the pay statement) will go to a private account, which is theirs and theirs alone, to be distributed upon reaching age 65.  Pending an analysis of benefits, those close to 50 may have more of their contribution go to Social Security since their retirement plan may have been more reliant on it than those closer to 30.
  
• The third group - those under 30 - will have both their contributions and those of their employer put in their private fund.  For these people, slated to start turning 65 years old in 2043 (two years before the current predicted insolvency of Social Security), their retirement fund is theirs only, meaning that the government has no obligations to them upon retirement.
  

This is analogous to the cash balance pension plans many large companies are moving to today.  For all groups the 401K contributions should remain as they are, with a reindexing for inflation every 5 years.  To further increase the individual's participation in their retirement future, restrictions on income for Roth IRA contributions should be removed. 

Will McCain try to reform Social Security?  It will be an uphill fight, and I am not optimistic the needed consensus will be gained in the next four years.  However, because the left wants to make us all slaves to the government, we won't see any of this happen if Obama wins the election; remember, his is painting a picture of a system that is "in better shape" than failing and struggling financial institutions.  The more we all struggle the more clamor there is for government intervention, and the liberals will be there to answer the call for more government.  Of that you can be certain.