I recently got into an argument (I mean, a discussion) with some conservative friends of mine about Social Security. And, as such discussions are wont to go, rather than dive into the core philosophical differences that divided us we argued over the economic viability of Social Security. Very quickly, analogies to sinking ships and the Titanic were brought up by my friends. Imaginary conversations of the captain refusing to acknowledge reality were proposed: “All we need is more paying passengers…”

My friends have a pretty bizarre idea of what constitutes a sinking ship. Social Security has a surplus (surplus!!) of $2.2 trillion. Not only is it floating, it is also helping to float the US government since that $2T was used to pay a fair portion of the $9T national debt.

Yes, yes, we can all make the forecasts 40 or 50 years into the future and see trouble ahead. But the conversation on the deck of the ship would be something like this:

Captain: (sorry there is no captain, this ship is piloted by committee)
Committee member 1: Look – there is an iceberg 800 miles in front of us. We’ll need to change course at some point.
Committee member 2: Turn right!
Committee member 3: Turn left!
Committee member 2: Right!
Committee member 3: Left!
Committee member 2: Right!
Committee member 3: Left!
……

Well, you can guess what might happen if our committee members remain stubborn. But if we do keep heading straight and plow into the iceberg in 40 years, I would be hard pressed to blame the ship or the iceberg.