Social Security is the bedrock of the U.S. retirement system. Over 70 million Americans currently collect Social Security’s retirement, disability, or survivor benefits, and more than 230 million more expect to receive those benefits when they are needed. The 90-year-old program is internally financed by a 12.4% payroll tax split between worker and employer on each worker’s first $184,500 of income, with current taxes supposed to pay current benefits.

Unfortunately, those taxes are currently falling short. As the U.S. population has gotten older – due to both rising life expectancy and falling birth rates – payroll tax revenue just hasn’t kept up with rising costs. Since 2010, Social Security’s costs have exceeded its revenue, and in just six years, the reserves built up in the 1990s and early 2000s will be depleted.

That’s when the crisis hits.

Under the law, Social Security cannot pay out more than it collects in revenue – and the gap is quite large. Based on the latest projections, retirees will face an immediate and abrupt 22% benefit cut. For a typical couple retiring in 2033, that would amount to $16,900 in lost annual benefits. For low-income retirees and the very old who count on Social Security, this cut would be absolutely devastating. And it gets worse from there — the size of the cut will grow to 38% by the end of the century.

An issue lawmakers would rather avoid

It’s hard to understand how anyone hoping to be in office in 2032 doesn’t have a plan to avoid this cut. Unlike many other crises, no one can claim this one took them by surprise. Social Security’s actuaries and trustees have been projecting this coming insolvency since the 1980s. Numerous commissions, councils, and task forces have put forward bipartisan plans to save it. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, also pushed for reform, recognizing the value of acting early to phase in changes gradually and give workers time to plan and adjust.

Yet here we are decades later, only a few years from insolvency, and most politicians in both parties are pledging not to touch Social Security. Whether they acknowledge it or not, that’s an endorsement of a 22% benefit cut.

Perhaps some politicians just assume that when the deadline hits, Congress will throw in the towel and rely on general funds to finance benefits, ending Social Security’s 90-year history as a self-financed contributory program. To fund Social Security’s 75-year solvency shortfall, however, Washington would have to borrow a staggering $840 trillion — which is $190 trillion even in today’s dollars, or 165% of output by 2100.

This gargantuan level of borrowing, on top of our already massive debt, would push up interest rates substantially and could add an extra 3 points to the rates Americans pay on mortgages, student loans, and auto loans — that’s more than a 50% increase. Such borrowing would also push up the rate the government pays on its own debt, leading to a debt spiral that would likely end in a fiscal crisis.

Others may hope that waiting until the last minute will make their preferred solution more likely. Sadly, waiting to act just makes all solutions less effective. Policies that would have restored 75-year solvency three decades ago, like eliminating the $184,500 payroll tax cap and growing initial benefits with “progressive price indexing” rather than wage indexing, would now only close around half of Social Security’s 75-year shortfall.

Clear, if distasteful, policy solutions

In reality, politicians know what needs to be done. Democrats and Republicans need to come together and agree to some combination of increases in revenue, reductions in benefit growth, and adjustments to the retirement age in order to bring Social Security’s spending and revenue in line.

Yet as Social Security’s insolvency date has gotten closer, political mudslinging and excessive demagoguing have made some common-sense reforms political non-starters. Meanwhile, changing economic circumstances and loss of phase-in time have reduced the effectiveness of many of the most well-known ideas. Perhaps some novel solutions can offer a path forward.

On the benefit side, one idea is to cap annual Social Security benefits at $100,000 per couple. A severely under-funded income support program should not be paying six-figure benefits to couples with tens of millions of dollars in wealth — no other country’s public pension system even comes close. And yet the wealthiest seniors retiring this year, many with tens of millions in assets, can actually collect right around $100,000. A six-figure limit would not meaningfully reduce anyone’s benefit today, but it would stop benefits from continuing to rise for the very richest seniors.

On the revenue side, another idea is to replace the employer’s side of the payroll tax — the 6.2% match to the worker payment — with a much fairer and more efficient tax applied to all compensation costs, including wages paid both below and above the cap, as well as fringe benefits. Under this employer compensation tax, workers would continue to pay the same payroll taxes as today. But employers would no longer get to exempt executive pay, health benefits, and stock options from taxation — all income would be taxed the same.

These two policies alone could close Social Security’s entire solvency gap, or, in more modest forms, could get us a long way toward solvency. There are plenty of other options to get us the rest of the way there.

These solutions would also make Social Security more progressive, pro-growth, efficient, and fair. When you tell people that Social Security doesn’t need to pay over $100,000 to millionaires or let companies shield large amounts of income from the payroll tax, they get it. It’s not rocket science — it’s just common sense.

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Unfortunately, most politicians would rather accuse their opponents of trying to destroy Social Security than actually work to fix it. That has to change because time is running out.

Whether policymakers adopt novel solutions or traditional ones, they need solutions to save Social Security, and fast. Promising not to touch Social Security is akin to endorsing a 22% benefit cut. That shouldn’t be an acceptable approach for anyone running for office in 2026.

Marc Goldwein (@MarcGoldwein) is the Senior Vice President and Senior Policy Director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.