<I'm actually an advocate for lower capital gains taxes and lower taxes in general. I just firmly believe we should ensure the solvency of ss and medicare first. Regardless, tax cuts have a long lag time before they spur the economy.

Social Security and Medicare are, in the long run, unsavable in their present form. Essentially a huge Ponzi scheme. I have seen no projections that do not have the whole thing collapsing within a few decades, with the only disagreement being exactly when. The solutions, given the current system: massive cuts in benefits, or massive increases in taxes. The politicians don't care about this, since they will long be retired (under a considerably more cushy program than SS) by then.

The Democrats have suddenly gotten Religion on the Social Security Surplus, a totally fictional line item that was cheerfully ransacked in dozens of previous budgets by both parties without blinking an eye. Naturally, this has much less to do with any real concern about Social Security than it does about putting the skids under the Republicans.