Trump has said he would close Social Security’s long-term shortfall by increasing oil and gas drilling and growing the economy, rather than by raising taxes or making direct benefit cuts.
He has also said we can fix Social Security by doing nothing except kick off the people collecting fraudulent payments especially to the 115 and 125 year olds.
Sadly, many Americans believe him.
The man is a complete…
Over and underpayments occur, other errors are made. There is no mass fraud creating overpayments or depleting the trust fund. Errors are regularly found and fixed. That is what inspectors general do…until Trump fired many of them.,
Data file errors are not payment errors.
None of what Trump claims or suggests will fix social security…
but what he has done with his tax legislation to date has made the situation worse.
His anti-immigration obsession is not helping either as we need to build a younger workforce over the next many years and immigrants are an important source.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
I know Trump could take control of the Social Security question and ask for legislation to deal with it. He is apparently not going to do it. George W is the last who tried for a week or two to gather interest in a reform that didn’t fly. I don’t think he had any real grasp of what he was trying to sell. Anyway, my point is that the real legislation needs to bubble up from the House and Senate and be slapped down onto the desk of the President. It won’t be an easy sell because it will require tax increases and other tweaks that will get pushback. That’s when we find out who has the backbone to get the job done.
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You forget. When Bush II tried to address the situation, adding sidecar accounts for investments (at the election of the participant, no cuts in benefits), the AARP mobilized and ran political ads – like nothing anyone had ever seen before.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB112977326560074008
“Mr. Novelli (AARP CEO) and policy director John Rother unveiled plans to denounce the accounts in AARP’s costliest-ever campaign of media ads and grass-roots activities. One nationally televised ad showed a house being bulldozed to fix a broken sink, as a voice asked, “Why dismantle Social Security when it can be fixed with just a few moderate changes?”
Republicans who went home a few weeks later for constituents’ meetings were confronted by protestors from AARP and liberal groups such as MoveOn.org.
On Feb. 22, Mr. Rove and Mr. Hubbard invited Mr. Novelli to lunch at the White House. They charged that AARP had broken its word to work with the White House, and now it was scaring seniors. A second meeting March 7 was also fruitless. Tensions grew. When Mr. Bush in April visited a Social Security facility in West Virginia and dismissed the system’s Treasury bonds stored there as worthless IOUs, Mr. Novelli says he called Mr. Hubbard and asked: “Who’s scaring seniors now?” …”
And, just a few years later, when Paul Ryan focused on Medicare funding woes, they ran ads about pushing a grandma in a wheelchair over a cliff.
Dick, where have you been? Amazing that you pin this issue on the idiot ass Trump.
Where are your criticisms of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump 1, and Biden – all who knew of the fundin challenge and no one made any serious proposal to improve the solvency other than W. You also forget that some signed legislation that made it worse, especially Obama (who changed the dynamic regarding annual deficits, blowing out the national debt by nearly $10 Trillion and Biden who signed into law the so-called Social Security Fairness Act, to buy votes from public employees.
If Trump Got Smart
The only solution Trump SHOULD pursue is to ask Congress to raise the FICA Tax rate from 12.4% to 16.65% (per the 2026 Trustees report), or as I have previously suggested here, increase it September 2028 – effective January 1, 2030, allocated 6.2% to workers and 10.45% to employers, holding the Congress and the federal government budgeting process hostage with vetoes until Congress provides legislation authorizing that change. The better alternative would include a Constitutional Amendment that Social Security’s benefit formula would never be changed, and that funding would be prospectively adjusted as needed to maintain solvency of the existing program, where solvency is measured in the current year, and after 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, and 75 years and indefinitely (for all lives in being) – to freeze existing and to minimize future intergenerational wealth transfers from current workers to current retirees.
He could point to the Trustee’s reports, other countries (Australia, 12% etc.).
Democrats would love to see Trump raise taxes. Republicans would avoid the fallout. Trump would claim “savior” status as he left the scene – and suffer no downside given the 2030 effective date.
Just as important, future changes to enhance Social Security, Congressional/Administration vote buying would not be permitted without amending the constitution – Congress would have to address any enhancement through stuff like Supplemental Security Income, etc.
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