For over 40 years, Congress has known that the Social Security Trust Fund would eventually run out of money, causing an immediate payment cut. Every year, the Social Security trustees issue a report estimating when that bankruptcy date will come and call on Congress to reform the program to make it sustainable. And every year, Congress ignores the trustees and does nothing, except last year, when it managed to make it worse.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935, many wage earners were exempted from the payroll tax used to fund the program, including most state and local workers who were already covered by government pensions. State and local workers first became eligible for the program in 1950, and now almost all pay into it.