I agree with most of what you’ve said, except for this
“We should have demanded means testing...”
Means testing would clearly make the program entirely welfare rather than a contribution-based program. It is bad enough that the benefits are skewed toward low-income (and hence low-contribution) workers.
The same is true of lifting the cap on wages subject to SS taxes. It just makes the “return” worse for the high-wage earners.
I think the Treasury should bite the bullet and sell $2T of new 10-year and 30-year Bonds, preferably with a tax-free status, and use the proceeds to pay off the IOUs in the SSTF. Then let the SSTF be managed like any pension fund, investing in the markets worldwide. Together with changing the benefits index from AWI to CPI, the unfunded liability of SS would be closed.
Social security should have been a means-tested welfare program starting in 1984 when the last major reform (tax increase) was made. The government has no business trying to provide retirement income especially using a generational Ponzi scheme approach. Big socialism is doomed to failure.
The means testing could have been structured so that current retirees received at least their contributions with some modest interest. The greatest generation has ripped off the rest of us by insisting that they earned their social security benefits. I will use my father as an example. He retired in 1986 at age 62. He has received Social Security benefits for 21 years. His combined payroll taxes were no more than $37,000, probably no more than $30,000. Yet he has received tax free benefits of more than $200,000. My mother has received spousal benefits of more than $130,000. Yet my parents think that they earned their benefits. Their benefits have come out of our retirement savings. Most people pay more in FICA taxes than in their 401K plans. These taxes have been directly diverted from most boomers retirement savings.