FYI, here's long-time Social Security commissioner Robert Ball's ideas about the scope of the Social Security problem (small) and some ways to achieve solvency courtesy of the good people at The Century Foundation. Obviously, I'm enamored of my own ideas on this score, but he's the country's leading authority on Social Security and I'm, well, a guest-blogger . . . so you might want to listen to him. At any rate, these in-house disagreements between friends of social insurance are small potatoes compared to the epic struggle over whether or not we should phase it out.