The discussion over the future of Social Security has once again drifted to the sidelines of politics. With checks going out every month, few voters and fewer candidates are paying attention to the deterioration of the program’s finances as the election draws near.
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This shouldn’t surprise anyone because the program as a national political priority has pulled a vanishing act every election year over the past decade. Once again, everything is a crisis to politicians other than Social Security.
While you have likely heard that Social Security pays benefits to nearly 70 million people, there is little talk about the fact that another 30 million people are about to start collecting Social Security benefits over the coming decade. The check is not important to every one of these people, but roughly 40 percent of them will live long enough to see Social Security as nearly their entire income.
Basically, Social Security is a lifeline for millions of Americans. Despite the importance of the program, any question about the reliability of its payments drifts from election to election as the program charts a course toward insolvency.
Our politicians don’t even talk about the program beyond the tired clichés of concern. Vice President Kamala Harris has promised “to strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the long haul by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
That is not a plan. It is a sentence designed to allow voters to hear what he or she wants to hear.
Of course, debates come and go without moderators holding candidates accountable for their lack of action on Social Security.
Democrats might respond that they have proposals, and they do. The problem with the narrative is that none of these proposals have managed to get out of a committee, even when the committee is controlled by party elders; even when the committee is chaired by the author of the proposed legislation.
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If Democrats honestly wanted to save Social Security, they had plenty of time to do so when they controlled both houses of Congress at the beginning of the Biden administration.
The media regularly talks about Biden’s plan for Social Security as though there is an actual Biden plan to save the program. Where is it, and why has he abjectly failed to move the plan forward in Congress? Kamala Harris has been supportive of Biden’s so-called plan without actually telling anyone what it might be.
Per usual, the mainstream media are giving Harris a break on the subject, citing her past support of the Social Security Expansion Act of 2019. That legislation was designed to deal with the financial problems of Social Security at the end of 2017, which were roughly $10 trillion smaller than what we face today.
Since then, Harris has walked back that commitment to taxing higher-income workers in support of President Biden. At the same time, Democrats have moved in the other direction, doubling down on what the “fair share” of taxes paid by millionaires should be. Believe it or not, the Democrat Party’s idea of the “fair share” paid by the rich has doubled since Harris last looked at the problem.
As another example of the drifting plans for the future of Social Security, back in 2020, Biden argued that earning $400,000 in income meant you were wealthy and should pay more. In 2024, the definition hasn’t changed despite inflation levels the country hasn’t seen in decades. As a result, the measure of wealth fell by nearly 20 percent in real terms despite the Democrats’ claims to a strong economy.
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Why is the definition of “wealthy” falling in a strong economy? The skeptic might say that $400,000 is just a big number, which creates the illusion of a plan, one that does not affect the average voter. Democrats haven’t changed the number because they have no intent on passing legislation based on what fairness might be or on whom the taxes might fall.
Folks, the clock continues to tick. On August 14, Kamala Harris released a statement, “For 89 years, Social Security has made the difference between poverty or peace of mind for millions of seniors, people with disabilities, and other beneficiaries. As President, I will protect and expand these bedrock programs.”
In the five minutes that it took Harris to post the empty rhetoric of politics, the program generated another $5 million in empty promises. The problem with Social Security is the ticking of the clock, and the willingness of voters to wait for politicians to stop twiddling thumbs.
Brenton Smith is a policy advisor with The Heartland Institute.