Here are the relevant facts about Social Security's future (as we at CBPP see them):

-The trustees estimate that the combined Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2036 -- a year earlier than they forecast in last year's report.

-After 2036, Social Security could pay three-fourths of scheduled benefits using its annual tax income [Samuelson implies all benefits expire in three years!]. Those who fear that Social Security won't be around when today's young workers retire misunderstand the trustees' projections.

-The program's shortfall is relatively modest, amounting to 0.8 percent of GDP over the next 75 years (and 1.45 percent of GDP in 2085). A mix of tax increases and benefit modifications -- carefully crafted to shield recipients of limited means and to give ample notice to all participants -- could put the program on a sound footing indefinitely.

-The 75-year Social Security shortfall is only slightly larger than the cost, over that period, of extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans (those with incomes above $250,000 a year). Members of Congress cannot simultaneously claim that the tax cuts for people at the top are affordable [or like the Ryan budget, add trillions more in tax cuts] while the Social Security shortfall constitutes a dire fiscal threat. And the shortfall is well under half the cost over 75 years of making all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent.