Improving the Solvency of Social Security: A Proposal (at Least for a Starting Place)

It appears that at least some people have come to the realization that economics is the allocation of SCARCE resources. Given the present budget deficit and the potential for the Social Security "Trust" Fund to go broke in the next 30 years, I propose the following: [1] Raising the base for payment of Social Security taxes to $200,000 (base adjusted for inflation starting 2013); [2] Raising the age to collect "full" benefits as follows: increase one month for those born 1952-54; two months 1955-57; three months 1958-60 (disclosure: I was born during one of these periods) until 24 months around 2021 for age 70); [3] raise age for "reduced" benefits as follows: one month if born 1981-84, two months if born 1985-88, etc. to twelve months (new age 63) if born 2025 or after; [4] eliminate the token death benefit to reduce administrative costs; [5] while 40 covered quarters still qualifies for benefits, raise the required covered quarters for minimum benefits to 80 covered quarters.

This may not be sufficient and I'm sure that some will be unhappy with a facet or facets of the proposal. I wish I had similar proposals for Medicare and Medicaid, but simply do not know medical costs well enough to comment.