Americans who might agree on little else share a common interest in preserving Social Security and Medicare.

Nearly all of us are either enrolled in those universal programs or expect to be as we get older. Social Security is far and away the nation’s most important safety net.

So it should alarm Republicans, Democrats and independents that Congress is doing nothing to prevent the enormous benefit reductions threatening both programs in just seven years. That is when the trust funds are on track to exhaust their reserves and reduce payouts to no more than what existing earmarked taxes will collect.

A lifeline for millions

Across the board, everyone receiving old age or survivor assistance from Social Security would get 23% less.

For every four of 10 retired Americans, Social Security provides at least half of their income. For one of every seven, it is more than 90%. Social Security keeps 20 million older people and a million children out of poverty. To let them down would be a catastrophic national disgrace.

Medicare would have to reduce spending by 11%, most of which would impact doctors and hospitals and result in diminished care. A reasonable tax increase would avert that.

The longer Congress puts off reckoning with these problems, the more difficult the solutions will be.

A vacuum at the top

President Donald Trump has provided no leadership on either issue.

He wanted to make matters worse by exempting all Social Security benefits from income tax. That is — surprise! — skewed to the wealthy, because benefits are already totally exempt for retired couples whose income is less than $32,000 and half is tax-free for joint incomes under $44,000. For those with higher incomes, 85% of benefits are taxed.

Trump falsely claims that he has already exempted Social Security from the tax. He’s referring to the temporary $6,000 increase in the standard deduction for couples, which is meaningless to those who owe no income tax. That expires in 2028, with the end of his term, and will add $91 billion to the deficit.

Earmarking tax revenue from Social Security to its trust fund is one fix proposed to prevent the 2033 shortfall. Permanently eliminating the tax goes in the wrong direction.

So too do Trump’s designs on Medicare, Medicaid and childcare, all of which he wants to dump on states, with his illegal war against Iran and his record $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request as the pretexts.

Misplaced priorities

“It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” Trump told an Easter Sunday luncheon at the White House. “We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

Few members of Congress are in favor of impending cuts in Social Security and Medicare, but it would be just as daunting to find many to specify how they would prevent it.

Every option is controversial.

The Brookings Institution summarized them in a white paper that proposed making Social Security fully solvent for another 75 years. See it at brookings.edu/articles/fixing-social-security-blueprint-for-a-bipartisan-solution.

The plan would raise the ceiling (now $184,500) on income subject to the OASDI or Social Security tax and increase the tax rate from 12.4%, paid jointly by workers and employers, to 12.6%; raise the retirement age, in stages, from 67 to 70 for people in the highest two-fifths of income brackets; and earmark to the trust fund all taxes paid on Social Security benefits.

It would fully tax Social Security benefits paid to individuals with adjusted gross incomes of $100,000 or $125,000 for couples.

It would base payouts on the highest 40 years of earnings rather than the present basis of 35, and it would reduce some spousal and child benefits for retirees.

The plan also proposes universal coverage and would create a new benefit for older workers with disabling conditions.

Sacrifice, in the national interest

The Brookings program asks for something from everyone, but not too much from anyone.

The most controversial part would increase legal immigration, with more temporary employment visas and higher quotas, and status adjustment “for certain undocumented immigrants.”

The urgent need for this is the falling birthrate and the declining ratio of taxpaying workers to retired beneficiaries.

That is a real fiscal time bomb that could set off generational warfare in Washington. The nation’s capital is crawling with right-wing enemies of Social Security who would like nothing more.

Trump chose one such person, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but he pulled the nomination after it was disclosed that Antoni had called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” that should be abolished.

Congress is already a day late to the duty of saving it. It’s one of the most important issues that voters should demand every candidate address in this election year.

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The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

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