It was the fact that we're going to move from a yearly surplus to a yearly deficit, and we'll have to finance this out of general revenues.

It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.

i.e. growing inequality + stagnation for many. Recently I've seen a study that placed the biggest dividing line amongst the educated vs. uneducated. This ties in since education level is correlated w. income level.

... from a recent CBO study on the issue:

Why Is the Gap Increasing Across
Socioeconomic Groups?

The growing differences in life expectancy in the United
States are well documented, but why they are increasing is
less well understood. Possible factors contributing to the
increase include the following:

• Smoking One study estimates that differential trends
  in smoking-related diseases explain at least 20 percent
  of the increasing gap in life expectancy between
  groups with different levels of education.

• Obesity. The nationwide increase in obesity began
  among the less educated and could now explain part
  of the widening socioeconomic gap in mortality
  rates.

• Self-Management of Disease. Adherence to medical
  treatments and therapies is higher among the more
  educated.14 The role of self-management, particularly
  in the case of chronic diseases, may have increased
  over time.

• Healthy Lifestyles and Use of Health Care. A balanced
  diet, exercise, and other healthy behaviors may be less
  prevalent among groups with low income and less
  education, and some measures suggest that the disparity
  is increasing over time. In addition, since the mid-
  1990s, the gap in health insurance coverage between
  low- and high-wage workers has been growing and has
  been accompanied by a widening gap in access to
  health care services as well.

Complicating any analysis of income, education, health,
and mortality is the fact that poor health itself has been
shown to be a cause of lower income, either because it
can inhibit educational attainment or because disabilities
can limit work opportunities. If those effects have
grown larger over time, that could help explain the
observed relationships between socioeconomic status
and mortality.

But of course if obesity is good for SS, it's bad for Medicare. Diabetes is one of the more expensive diseases to treat.

More Wagster!