Social Security and dealing with change

Victor at The Dead Parrot Society has another interesting post up about Social Security. While the details of his post are interesting, the conclusion is the most intriguing part to me:

Maybe this means that I don't really care about a 'permanent' fix for Social Security; our solution today should also give future generations the flexibility to end or adapt the program as they may see fit. By saddling us with a multi-trillion inter-generational debt, this is a freedom that our forefathers did not see fit to grant to us. The world will change, and it is our duty to give our children the freedom to change with it.

Of course, this has been seen as a feature, not a bug, to many, including FDR. I agree with Victor though that change is a constant and our programs should be adaptable to deal with that change. We don't know what the future holds. We can however intimate that any program whose liabilities only extend to money that it has collected will be adaptable, whereas the one that we have now, which is predicated on paying existing liabilities by future collections will always be difficult to adapt to changing needs.