Politicians have been pussyfooting around the impending fiscal crisis looming in the very near future of Social Security for decades. After George W. Bush’s failed bid to privatize the retirement insurance program and save it from itself, Republicans gradually stopped paying lip service to fixing its Ponzi-like structure, instead broadening their spending concerns to the deficit as a whole.

Then Donald Trump won the presidency after promising not to touch a penny of entitlement spending. Now we’re careening toward crisis.