Most polls show people are more interested in boosting taxes than cutting benefits. "I'm a great believer in the democratic political process, but there is a disconnect [between] what people want and what Congress is seriously considering," he says.

One thing people forget about Social Security is that it is not just a retirement program.

"It combines protections for all family members and several generations when income is lost due to very common occurrences, such as retirement, serious injury and the loss of a family wage earner, a parent or spouse," he says.

That notion that curtailing benefits as a way of meeting debt problems is wrong, Bernstein says. "It's unbelievable that it is being put forward seriously at a time when corporations are making record profits, at a time when many executives are making obscene amounts of money, when we are spending trillions of dollars on wars we don't win. The notion that cutting benefits for people who are on the financial edge [would help the situation] strikes me as unrealistic."

The U.S. Social Security Administration recently announced a 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients beginning in 2012, the first increase since 2009. It's helpful, Bernstein says, but doesn't go far enough. That's because it won't fully maintain beneficiary power. "The formula setting that rate does not meet fully the needs of Social Security recipients, especially when considering medical costs."

The purpose of COLA is to ensure that the purchasing power of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits is not eroded by inflation. It is based on the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the last year a COLA was determined to the third quarter of the current year. If there is no increase, there can be no COLA, according to the Social Security Administration.

The new cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security recipients takes place in January 2012. Nearly 8 million Social Security Income beneficiaries will see their payments increase Dec. 30.

Proponents of cutting Social Security benefits have pitched a chained consumer price index "to adjust Social Security benefits, other government benefits and the brackets in the federal income tax each year," according to a recent report by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. 

Proponents argue that a "chained CPI would be more accurate since it reflects the extent to which people substitute one item for another in the face of a price increase," according to the report. "The chained CPI is projected to rise about 0.3 percentage points per year more slowly than the current index. Thus, the change would result in lower cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries and for federal civilian and military retirees, and would also lead to an increase in federal taxes."

The report's authors say the chained CPI wouldn't be accurate because the index it's following doesn't take into account the true spending habits of the elderly and low income individuals and their ability to change their spending in response to price changes.

Bernstein calls the proposal a "stealth benefit cut. It is being mislabeled as more accurate when the basic supposition is false."

"This utterly arbitrary new element suggests that the name of the game is simply to reduce each year's COLA and to do it by what they regard as unnoticeably minute amounts," Bernstein says.

After five years of chained COLA, benefits would be 1.5 percent behind price increases; after ten years, 3 percent. After 20 years, the benefit reduction would be 6 percent, he says.

Bernstein asserts Social Security isn't just essential for its recipients but for American businesses as well. Social Security regularly gives income to nearly 55 million people. It exceeds $800 billion a year.

"If you reduce that, what are you doing to the supermarkets; what are you doing to the gas stations; what are you doing to the day-to-day services that people have to purchase? That is income to American business. You cut that, you curtail government services and it has an impact on schools."

"This is a time when the economy desperately needs consumer purchasing power and Social Security is one major element in providing consumer purchasing power. It is there right away, all you have to do is turn on the spigot. You don't have to design a road or some other major construction project, not that those are undesirable. This is available right away, quickly, an early response to economic hard times."

Many Americans rely on Social Security benefits as their only source of retirement income. The reality of Social Security is that it isn't going to give people enough money to live on exclusively, Bernstein says. The average monthly payout to Social Security recipients is $1,100.

"There's really no practical substitute for Social Security, not just for recipients but for the community at large," Bernstein says.