The 1990s were the heyday of the Social Security "crisis." The problem wasn't that Social Security actually was in crisis. The problem was that all the pundits, very much including the news and editorial pages of the Washington Post, insisted that Social Security was in crisis. The crisis story became so deeply entrenched that even progressive politicians, who knew it was tripe, felt they had to repeat it, otherwise they wouldn't look serious. I recall having a Democratic pollster tell me that people just get angry if you don't "acknowledge" that Social Security is in a crisis.