Ch-ch-ch-ch ... changes.

Senatorial hopefuls -- in Florida even -- start to discuss unpopular options for saving Social Security:

After creeping around the issue of Social Security as if it were a coiled snake, the Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate finally acknowledged during Tuesday's debate at The Palm Beach Post that Congress must make changes that could involve the payroll tax that finances the program, benefits or the retirement age.

Jeff Greene and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, both wanted to defer any specifics until the report from President Obama's 18-member, bipartisan budget panel. But last month, a report by the Senate Select Committee on Aging laid out what everyone in Washington knows about Social Security: The program will be fine for the next 75 years if Congress makes small adjustments to how it is financed and what it pays out.

Currently, the 6.2 percent individual payroll tax applies only to the first $107,000 of a person's income. Raising that tax or removing the cap could fix the problem. Americans can start collecting Social Security at age 62, and can collect full benefits at 66. For those born after 1960, the age is raising gradually to 67. One big reason the program has begun to pay out more than it takes in is that unexpectedly high numbers of Americans between 62 and 66 have retired rather than keep looking for work. And, of course, with more people out of work, fewer people are contributing. Among all Senate candidates, only Republican Marco Rubio has been gutsy enough publicly to consider raising the retirement age.
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Aside from stabilizing the program on which 60 million Americans depend to varying degees, whoever becomes Florida's next senator will have to be gutsy enough to fix Social Security because if Congress can't do that, Congress can't fix the nation's finances.

Entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - defense and veterans spending and interest on the national debt make up more than two-thirds of President Obama's proposed 2011 budget of $3.69 trillion. The budget has broken down that way for years. Though Social Security and defense are the most expensive items, the biggest long-term problem is Medicare. Compared with that problem, fixing Social Security is easy.