Heritage Foundation targeted Social Security and Medicare years ago.

[madfloridian]

Here is a post with edited links that I made a year ago. It did not get much attention. Hope it gets more now. This first link is absolutely the best one.
Myths and Realities: Get the Facts!
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/socialsecurity/myths/

Myth #1
Social Security and Medicare won't be there for me when I retire.

REALITIES:"Realities: Social Security has provided a lifeline to millions of Americans with millions of checks, and in more than 60 years has never missed a payment—and this track record can continue. Social Security is basically a sound system that can meet 100 percent of its obligations for the next 39 years, and with responsible changes it can continue to do so indefinitely.

Medicare is a social insurance program that has provided guaranteed health insurance to millions of older and disabled Americans since it was established in 1965. Medicare and Social Security have worked hand in hand to lift millions of Americans out of poverty over the past three decades. To this day, Medicare continues to be a sound system that has delivered an expanding array of health care services reliably.Social Security and Medicare will be there for young workers—if we insist that it will be there. There are plenty of things we can do to make the necessary repairs to Social Security and Medicare, and we've got time to do them. If we choose to make these adjustments, Social Security and Medicare will be around for generations to come. " (MUCH more at the site)

The Derailing of Social Security
http://www.fair.org/extra/9905/ss-ttm.html
SNIP..."And yet experts from the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute have repeatedly and falsely claimed that Social Security is bankrupt--and the media have let them get away with it. For example, in an executive summary of a June 1998 report entitled "Social Security's $20 Trillion Shortfall," the Heritage Foundation author, Daniel J. Mitchell, flatly claimed "the Social Security system is bankrupt." When Mitchell repeated that lie on Good Morning America the following month (7/26/98), the ABC reporter interrupted him--not to correct him, but to indirectly support his views by pointing out that 84 percent of participants in a survey on ABC's website favored some sort of privatization.

Of course, ABC is not the only network that fails to challenge the misinformation of these think tanks. In January 1998 on CNN's Newsday and again in December 1998 on CNN's Your Money, the anchors claimed that "Social Security starts having cash-flow problems just 14 years from now." According to actuaries at Social Security, at the end of 2015, which is 17 years after that broadcast, Social Security will have assets of almost $2 trillion. I'd like to have cash flow problems like that!...."

The Generational Gambit
http://www.fair.org/extra/9703/generation.html
SNIP...."The media have been duped by a clever campaign whose intention is to get rid of those nasty Social Security programs. Perhaps the idea of "generational warfare" was too good a story to question. Whatever the reason, the media have turned an ideological assertion into conventional wisdom—and in the process have distorted the political voice of an entire generation..

Marketing Generational Conflict

The story of "generational conflict" begins with a handful of strategists and their organizations, the media sources for the myth of Generation X. The first of these was Americans for Generational Equity, or AGE, an organization that demonstrates that with proper funding, it's possible to launch an unsubstantiated idea and see it turn into the standard media view.

AGE had three adept founders and leaders: executive director Paul Hewitt, who continues to direct campaigns to privatize Social Security from his base at the right-wing National Taxpayers Union; research director Philip Longman, who recently published an anti-entitlement tome called The Return of Thrift; and Sen. Dave Durenberger (R.-Minn.), who later pled guilty to theft of public funds....."END SNIP

The Medicare drug plan is a result of well-planned attacks, and now the same groups are going after Social Security.

This compilation of articles by FAIR is quite eye-opening. They are using the media against us, just as they did for Medicare.

[Erika]

1. They want to keep our taxes

and redistribute them for their own corporate purposes. My Senator of 16 years has a weekly scheduled meeting with the Heritage Foundation.

It's neocon and serves only the wealthy.

[madfloridian]

2. Trying to divide the elderly and the young people....

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the Generational Gambit. Part is true, but the part that says is it is not working....well, that was then. Now it is working. It has the younger folks getting panicky now.

SNIP..."If journalists reached out to a broad group of young people, they would find a generation that is not just trying to get a bigger share of the pie, or growing resentful of their grandparents. They would also find a generation whose prospects have been steadily undermined by negative wage growth, declining economic security, and diminishing investment in the future.

They would also find a generation trying to promote positive political change. Young activists have already changed our future with diversity, divestment, environmental and service movements. Underlying each is a profound concern for improving the lives of all people, young and old.

Cowan and Nelson once predicted that Social Security would be our generation's Vietnam. They may be correct—but for the wrong reasons. As in the early years of the Vietnam war, young people face a press that dismisses our views and participates in a propaganda campaign promoted by special interests.

The good news is that young people have not taken the bait. We may be skeptical about the future of social insurance programs—which is hardly a terrible "generational conflict"—but we have resisted the calls to division....."

I think the division is occurring now. The press has worked its magic. The article is from 1997.

[Erika]

3. Sadly, the younger folks should be panicky

SS taxes are hefty. They should fight like hell that they pay taxes for a promise of a return and now find out the collection is going elsewhere. Privitazation of accounts is financially stupid. Bushco's plan puts a max on the amount of profit. If the profit exceeds that max the financial brokers get to keep the excess.

The kids now look at third world conditions.

[madfloridian]

4. And guess who else has been pushing this notion.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_sub.cfm?kaid=125&subid=165

Articles sounding like the Heritage Foundation stance, but these are from DLC/PPI/New Dems from 1998 to 2004. That is just on this one page of links.