I Worked in the White House. We Never Imagined This Problem Would Get This Bad.

The first major public policy issue I worked on in the White House, almost 30 years ago, was President Bill Clinton’s call to “save Social Security first.” Though the fund wasn’t projected to run dry for another three decades, the country seemed gripped by the issue. A few years later, George W. Bush felt strongly enough about the looming crisis that he spent much of his political capital pushing a strategy to resolve it. This week the Social Security trustees announced that the trust fund for retirees and survivors will be exhausted in just six years. That’s six years before tens of millions of Americans could see their benefits cut by 22 percent. The crisis is closer than anyone in the Clinton or Bush years ever imagined we might let it get. People who receive Social Security haven’t taken to the streets in outrage — perhaps because they know from experience they will be spared. It’s everyone else who will be made to pay.