The Longer We Wait, the Harder Social Security Reform Gets

Brenton Smith ([email protected]) is a policy advisor with The Heartland Institute.

For the past 40 years, Social Security reform has been a topic that politicians from both parties have discussed but avoided taking any action. Sadly, the longer we delay reform, the harder it gets. Data shows that a person turning 76 years old today expects to outlive the system’s ability to pay scheduled benefits. This statistic should be concerning to our elected officials. However, it has yet to garner significant attention.

In Washington, the current solution is not to fix Social Security. Instead, the plan is to change the program’s role in our society. What has sustained Social Security over time is its earned benefits system, where people have paid for their benefits. Despite the government’s broader financial troubles, Social Security was still able to provide benefits, thanks to this system. Politicians in Washington are willing to consider everything except Social Security when it comes to budget cuts. This is largely due to President Roosevelt’s design of the program’s bedrock feature, payroll taxes.

President Roosevelt created the framework of earned benefits to protect the program from politicians and ensure that the elderly’s needs were not competing for resources with the other priorities of the government. If politicians sever the link between payroll taxes and benefits, Social Security will essentially become a welfare program. Today, politicians are offering higher benefit payments without telling people that it is the price of their legal and moral rights to benefits when they retire. The lure of gaining several more dollars in monthly Social Security payments is not worth sacrificing these rights that protect people from other politicians taking benefits away in the future.

Some proposals on both sides of the aisle suggest financing the program from the federal government’s General Fund, such as creating a sovereign wealth fund that borrows $1.5T to generate revenue for the program. The interest on this fund is $60 billion per year, which is essentially a cash infusion from the General Fund. This plan opens the door for future politicians to reduce benefits, citing that the program is “driving our deficits.” Senior citizens’ legal and moral protection will be gone if this happens. If this plan succeeds, younger voters will demand more benefits, eventually leading to more financial strain on the program in the future.

The outlook for Social Security is already dire, and it will likely get worse if we do not take action soon. Delaying reform will only make the necessary changes harder to implement. It is time for our elected officials to take Social Security reform seriously and work towards ensuring its longevity in our society.

The opinions expressed in guest op-eds are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.