Here Are the Hard Facts That Doom Every Proposed Social Security Fix

As the United States careens toward the day when the Social Security trust fund runs out, now estimated at 2032, press reports of reform proposals have been arriving with greater frequency and mounting expressions of fear. The government transparency organization Open the Books reported in March that the total amount of unfunded Medicare and Social Security obligations is now an unimaginable $193.6 trillion. The most recent proposed fix comes from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). It includes a cap on the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which increases recipients’ monthly checks to make up for inflation. CRFB co-chair...