Treasury Department: We can only fix Social Security through a combination of increased revenues and/or smaller outflows

I really don't mean to be snarky, but I just can't help it: Duh!

But this is actually a big step for the Administration, to take privatization off the table. My own prescription of common sense Social Security fixes:

-raise the ceiling limit on income subject to social security withholding (currently, 6.20% up to earnings of $97,500/year, with a hard cap of $6045). Raising the earnings ceiling to $150K or $200K will increase revenues by quite a bit, particularly among those taxpayers most likely to get big benefits anyway (longer lifespans) and most likely to not really need the money as much (more likely to have private retirement plans);

-increase the retirement age, currently at 67 for younger workers. People are living longer, and while the retirement age has been increased a bit, a raise to 69 or 70 would help not only those older workers who want to continue to work (but find work choices limited at age 65) but if we keep the early retirement at 62 this will provide a wider range of choices for workers.

-initiate a needs-test, particularly for those with higher income levels after retirement age. For example, a taxpayer earning more than $100,000/year in income might have their total benefits limited to the amount they paid into the system and no more. This would eliminate some people (mostly, the wealthy elderly) from getting benefits far and above the amounts they paid in which would help keep money available for others.

Needs testing is a hot button issue for Social Security, but by keeping the threshhold high this seems to be a common-sense approach. Paying out thousands of dollars to people who don't need it (and didn't pay that much into the system) is commonsensical to me.