Hint from the Real World.

Collins and Brooks talk deficit, but they're missing something key: If you raise the Social Security retirement age, for any working person other than the cushy professional "sitting" jobs, you're just shifting the costs onto the Disability part of the Social Security system.

Bodies that wear out at 55, wear out at 55. And then you can "grid out", and for medical reasons, begin collecting your benefits early, under the disability programs.

Problem is, disabled children (again, this is not means tested) get a monthly check, and one for their caregiver too, in addition to the medical benefits. Some children never get off the disability, and are transitioned into adulthood. For Downs' syndrome and severely impaired youths who will never work and need financial help outside the family, we all agree these are necessary payments. But mental illnesses? And others that allow people to function in society, but not work? Somebody calculate what that is costing before offering up estimates of cost savings.

Then, you get the physical laborers who simply can't work to 75 or 80, or whatever age it is the numbers are saying we have to push back retirement in order for the numbers to balance.

Remember Disability costs too, is all I'm saying, when you're predicting (erroneously, I believe) how much money will be saved on paper ...

Gail Collins: But we part company on this business of raising the Social Security retirement age. It sounds seductive. (Push it to 70 and get $247 billion by 2030.) The much-made argument is that people are living longer so they should retire later. But the longevity is skewed to the high-income earners, and if there’s one thing we already have enough of in this country it’s government programs to make the rich richer.

David Brooks: Sorry, we’ve got to raise the retirement age. If you are 60 right now, you can expect to live another 22.4 years. There’s no way young people can subsidize the oldsters for nearly a quarter of their lives. Especially when children today will be getting a negative net return on the money they put into the system. The whole thing will go kablooie if we ask people to surrender to a program that makes them worse off.