People in Washington who worry about Social Security’s long-term future often complain about mixed messages from the public [1]. But when I talk to them I hear some mixed messages, too.

One message is that the Social Security problem really isn’t that complex. “It’s actuarial,” they’ll say. “It’s simple. Not like Medicare,” they’ll add, with a roll of the eyes.

And there’s truth in that. Compared to Medicare [1], Social Security is simple. The problem is driven by the increasing number of baby boomers who are going to retire, and it’s just a matter of how many people are paying in versus how many people are taking out. Medicare, by contrast, has the same demographic problem plus the problem of skyrocketing and unpredictable health care costs. The potential fixes for Social Security aren’t exactly pleasant, but they’re not that daunting, either. The simplest comparison I’ve heard is from the Social Security and Medicare trustees [2]. If you were "king of the world" and wanted to bring Social Security into balance for the next 75 years, you could raise payroll taxes immediately 16 percent or cut benefits 13 percent. No fun, certainly. But to make Medicare stable for 75 years, you’d have to raise payroll taxes 122 percent or cut benefits by 51 percent. Which is very, very ugly.

The second thing people in Washington will tell you is that, even if it seems relatively simple, Social Security is the “third rail” of politics – touch it and you die. You can’t even talk about it, they’ll say.

And I’m not sure that’s true. Yes, President Bush’s plan for private accounts went nowhere. But private accounts aren’t the only option. Yes, politicians are regularly hammered by their opponents for even suggesting change. But while that may be effective campaign politics, that doesn’t automatically relate to how people talk about this issue in their daily lives.

And all the public opinion research conducted for Facing Up [2] shows that citizens can deal with these budget questions. [3] They need a certain amount of information and they need to have the options fairly presented [3]. But once that is done, they can eight tradeoffs and consequences and reach solid conclusions about what should be done. They did this in focus groups we’ve conducted [4], and they’ve done this in the ChoiceDialogues we’ve organized [4]. There can be a real discussion on this, if our leaders want to have it.

And I’d argue that sooner or later, our leaders have to have that discussion. Because there’s one thing that is true about the “third rail” argument. There’s no way that the American people are going to let anyone make fundamental changes in their retirement plans without their consent. You can get that consent, I’m convinced. But you’re going to have to talk to people honestly to get it.

This post is my submission to the Facing Up blog carnival [4].