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Well, we certainly need to raise the retirement age. I've told my 19-year-old and my 22-year-old that they're not going to be getting retirement benefits at age 62.

One line I'd draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn't. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they'll get penalized with lower benefits.

My view is pensioners don't have the one option that people of working age have. They can't really increase their income, because they are no longer able to work.

I'm not philosophically opposed to raising the retirement age... I accept the fact that I may have to raise my retirement age for that.

The fine print in the President's Social Security proposal is that all present and future workers under age 55 will have their promised retirement benefits cut.

I have to think about the possible ramifications of an early retirement.

It is estimated that raising the retirement age to 70 would cut the shortfall by about 36%. But this proposal has some drawbacks. Women and men who have worked jobs that require manual labor all of their lives may not physically be able to do work until they are 70 years old.

Who are benefits promised to, overwhelmingly? Well, they're promised to older people. And if you have a society like Europe that is upside down where there are a lot more older people than younger people, you have economic calamity.

There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working.