“the actuarial assumptions under SS today absurdly unworkable.”
Not absurdly unworkably, just 20% unworkable. It’s true that in the past the ratio of workers to retirees was higher, but in the past SS had huge surpluses. We don’t really need huge surpluses - the politicians raid them anyway. All we need is a balanced system of inflow equals outflow. We have a balanced system today. In the future, the projections are for inflow to equal 80% of outflow in the period of 2040 to about 2065, and then fall to 74% by the year 2100. (based on page 11 of http://aging.senate.gov/crs/ss1.pdf )
If 20% of the hull of your boat were missing, it would be absurd to take it for a sail