Thanks for the Weisbrot article. My only reservation is that it is the actuaries who do the detailed work, not the Trustees.
The shortfall dates much earlier than 1996, at least to 1989 by my knowledge. Using the shortfall to claim the program is bankrupt dates to about 1994 when the Republicans seized control of Congress. Before that, the conservative "worry" was the size of the Trust Fund itself, which the conservatives claimed would lead Congress somehow, someway to do something sinful. See Carolyn Weaver's book on Social Security, published in 1990 (sorry, I don't have the title at hand). In other words, before 1994 it was the Trust Fund itself that was bad per se. After 1994 it was the bankruptcy of the Trust Fund that was bad.
I would appreciate it if somebody would take a look at am.exe at http://www.ssa.gov/ This is a study done in 1994 of the actuaries's methods in deriving their estimates by outsiders.
The outsiders did say that their study, which basically approves the SSA methods, was hampered by the secrecy of SSA data and methods.
I would feel happier if somebody who understands technical studies better than me took a look at it.
Also, one should note the decimation at SSA over the Republican years. There has been severe staff reductions that IMO cripple the SSA employees in doing their jobs. There are no replacements with experience for the actuaries who do the grunt work, and many of these actuaries are already past retirement age.
I try to avoid conspiracy theories, but I can't help but wonder if the Republicans weren't aiming at Social Security's destruction by starving the agency. Well, there is a conspiracy to destroy Social Security after all, and starving the agency as part of the conspiracy is not so far fetched I hope.