In the polarizing age of President Trump, there isn’t much that the two major parties are on the same page about. But when it comes to screwing over America’s youth, the two parties are allies.
In an alarming new report, trustees have announced that Social Security has begun dipping into its reserves and will face insolvency in 2034; and that Medicare will become insolvent in 2026, or three years earlier than previously expected.
That means that absent action, those currently aged 50 won’t be able to collect all of their promised Social Security benefits when they retire, and those aged 57 won’t be able to collect their expected Medicare benefits at retirement.
If Congress defers action, what it means is that any eventual response (such as steep spending cuts or tax increases) is going to be much more sudden and severe, causing significant economic disruptions. It also means that any burden is going to fall disproportionately on younger Americans, as the crisis is set to hit by the time today’s teenagers graduate college and enter the workforce.
On a superficial level, for those who treat policy battles as a spectator sport, there are stark differences between the two parties when it comes to the nation’s major entitlement programs.
Democrats, after all, talk in terms of expanding entitlements and don’t see a problem that can’t be solved without drastic tax increases on wealthier individuals. They chastise Republicans for wanting to gut retirement programs to finance more tax cuts for millionaires.
Under the Obama administration, Democrats raised Medicare taxes and cut spending on the program not to make it more financially sound, but to finance a massive new entitlement. The idea of expanding Medicare to all has been gaining traction among Democratic presidential hopefuls. To Democrats’ credit, even if the math doesn’t add up, at least this is consistent with their ideological goals of expanding the role of government and establishing a broader safety net.
Republicans, in contrast, have a rather conflicted relationship with entitlements. During Democratic administrations, Republicans shout from the rooftops about the irresponsibility of ignoring the looming entitlement crisis. When in charge, however, they go on ignoring the problem or making it worse.
Former President George W. Bush, it is true, did attempt to reform Social Security in 2005. At the time, he warned that by 2018, the system would begin to spend more than it takes in, and that it would be bankrupt by 2042. He was seen as an alarmist, but in reality, the system started running deficits in 2010 and the insolvency date has since moved up eight years.
Though he was correct to warn about inaction, it should be noted that his ill-fated campaign for Social Security reform came only after he had signed the largest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society in the form of the Medicare prescription drug plan.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., shot to national stardom during the Obama years by championing a sweeping plan to overhaul entitlements, a form of which ended up being adopted by congressional Republicans. At the time, it was a politically useful way to score points against Obama for being reckless and irresponsible. But given the power to actually implement it, Republicans have run for the hills.
Trump, despite his image as somebody who is willing to tell it like it is and disregard political correctness, has cowered at the idea of telling the truth about entitlements. Part of his populist message has been to promise not to touch Social Security and Medicare, so doing anything on the issue is effectively off limits for Congressional Republicans even if they suddenly gained more gumption.
Trump’s victory in the Republican primaries, it should be noted, came in an election after Mitt Romney helped nuke Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential primaries by running to the left of him on Social Security.
So it’s understandable that Republican politicians whose main goal in life is getting elected would conclude that the Republican voting base, which skews older, is not exactly clamoring for entitlement reform.
Thus, even though Republicans and Democrats create the appearance of stark policy differences on entitlements, in practice, they are allies in maintaining an unsustainable status quo that’s going to cripple future generations.
