Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, we had one idea that was floated about 4 years ago called private accounts. It was very controversial. Essentially, it would turn Social Security into a 401K plan. It would allow people to invest their Social Security taxes into, for example, the stock market. That didn't fly, so I don't think we're going to revisit that any time soon. Instead, I think there are actually some fairly simple things that could be done to at least contain the deficit - projected deficit - in Social Security. One would be to raise the retirement age at which you can receive full Social Security. This is based on the fact that people are living longer. When Social Security was started, and the retirement age was set at 65, that was because 65 was actually older than the life expectancy. Most people wouldn't live to collect Social Security. Now, of course, life expectancy is in the 70s, so one suggestion would be to raise that age for full receipt of Social Security up to maybe 70 or 72. Another idea would change how Social Security payments are indexed to inflation. Right now, they're indexed to increases in wages. Wages tend to increase more than prices, so if we went to a price indexing mechanism that would save money. And then a third idea would be to means test receipt of Social Security. What that means is the higher your income - where, perhaps, you're not in as much need of Social Security - higher income people would see what they receive in Social Security cut back. This would make Social Security much more progressive in terms of its payments. These three ideas would actually go a long way toward making Social Security solvent for many, many more years."