Hutchison makes some interesting points in analyzing the demographics of Social Security. However, he makes 2 mistakes in his appraisal:

1) His contention that we should wait until 2038 to do anything, since that is when the Trust fund is projected to be depleted. The problem here, though, is that the day of reckoning is not when the so-called Trust fund is dry, but (currently forecasted) 2018, when we must first dip into the Trust fund to supplement payroll taxes to meet benefit payments. Since the trust fund is a fiction, tapping into this fund amounts to taxing people to redeem the phony notes in the Trust fund, i.e. raising taxes. To be fair, if Congress were to systematically cutback on other spending, it might be possible to make good on these IOU’s without raising taxes, but considering the ever-growing portion of the budget needed to pay interest on the national debt, I would discount that possibility.

2) The second error is more conceptual in nature. He suggests that the problem can be solved via changes in the indexing of benefits. He may be correct that this change could reduce the current imbalances in the system. But this ignores the fundamental issue of whether it is a good and right idea to systematically force younger generations to transfer their wealth to older generations. That is the key issue which most are ignoring. We will never find long-term balance and equity in a system that is fundamentally flawed in its design.