SS isn't a 'scheme'. I realize you are too young to know this but 'The Poor House' wasn't just a state of mind. It was an actual place where poor people, mostly elderly, went because they simply could not afford to live anywhere. I know young people all think they will be wildly successful and well off when they retire, every one of them thinks that, but the reality of life is, you probably won't be. I'm not saying you will be a failure. You can live a comfortable life, able to pay your bills and eat, but most won't be able, for one reason or another, to save what they need to fund life beyond working years, which are finite, despite your incredible good health now. Stuff just breaks down. And by the way, Boomers paid into SS too, all our lives, so the blame game just doesn't work there.
And pensions are going the way of dinosaurs. So what are the elderly to do? You can't just take away SS and re-boot. People need to eat, today as it turns out, and tomorrow and the next and the next day. They also need utilities, again today and tomorrow. And the elderly need more health care cause stuff does break down. And it's not just heart transplants for everyone, but everyday stuff they need which will enable them to live quite a while longer in relative good health.

SS is here to stay, thank goodness, so we need to start at that point and go forward to fix it. Begrudging people SS is ignoring history, as well as our own national ethics of moral obligation. Are we a third world country or are we the United States of America?

Stuff costs. That's a fact. We can't run a modern, progressive country on yesterdays dollars. Sure there is some waste and abuse, but not nearly enough to make up the short fall. The super wealthy need to stop whining and pony up some more. Not a lot, but some. NASA needs to stop whining and realize we simply can't aford to go to the moon right now (or Mars or anywhere else). The military needs to stop whining and cut the budget, and quit promoting wars and all the glittery gadgets that go with it. The big oil companies need to stop whining (as do we) and not expect subsidies (and we need to stop whining and realize what a gallon of gas really costs)

On the other hand, the nations infrastructure really needs to be addressed. That is going to cost a lot of money, so we just need to get on with it and stop whining. We are not about to let our elderly go hungry and homeless, so we just need to stop whining and fix it already, without all the political posturing and gamesmanship.