From "Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 2011" Table S-3 (p149)
For years 2011-2020...
Social Security receipts....... 8788 B$
Social Security benefits....... 9388 B$
Social Security deficit........ 600 B$
Medicare receipts.............. 2566 B$
Medicare benefits.............. 6955 B$
Medicare deficit............... 4389 B$
Other receipts................. 23903 B$
Security programs........ 9187 B$
Non-security programs.... 5120 B$
Mandatory programs....... 9173 B$
Interest................. 6029 B$
Other expenses................. 29509 B$
Other deficit.................. 5606 B$
When folks talk about Obama's "10 trillion dollar deficit", they're talking about the projected deficit over the next ten years. Only 5% of that deficit is due to Social Security. Clearly, Social Security is not the cause of our near-term fiscal problems. The problems are in Medicare and "elsewhere".
In my view, the Medicare (budget) problem is just a part of our national healthcare mess, and needs to be considered as we continue to address that problem. Enough said.
We're left with over five trillion dollars in deficit spending which can only be addressed by looking at $9trillion in "security programs" and $5trillion in "non-security programs". That's why it makes no sense at all to say that cuts to Defense spending are "off the table" when considering plans to eliminate the deficit; you'd have to eliminate all other government programs. To get our fiscal house in order, we need to think about cutting Defense spending by one third. That's the budget problem to be addressed.