During President Ronald Reagan’s first term, George Will generated a great deal of discussion when he coined the phrase “we are all FDR’s children now.” The conservative Washington Post columnist has criticized liberals and progressives countless times over the years, but he also views Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a consequential president who had a long-lasting impact. In a July 17 column, Will takes a look at a program that originated with FDR’s New Deal 91 years ago — Social Security — and the challenges it is facing.
“The winners among those seeking election or reelection to the Senate this year have a rendezvous with a crisis that will arrive in their six-year terms,” Will, now 84, argues. “They should be asked about two entangled problems: soaring budget deficits, and Social Security’s insolvency. The deficit in the first nine months of fiscal 2026 was $1.4 trillion, worse than at the same point in fiscal 2025. The government is on track to have borrowed at least $2 trillion by the September 30 end of the fiscal year.”
The conservative columnist continues, “Social Security’s retirement program costs have exceeded its income since 2021. Since then, the program has supplied the difference by drawing down its ‘trust fund.’ It consists of surpluses (of revenues over spending on benefits) from before 2010. Those surpluses have been interest-accumulating deposits with the federal government. This funding stream is projected to be exhausted before the 2032 elections. Benefit cuts of at least 22 percent, depending on the size of shortfalls in payroll tax revenues, would automatically occur, absent other measures.”
The “government’s most popular program,” according to Will, is facing an “impending convulsion.”
“In 1977, and again just six years later, Congress made tax and benefit changes to keep the trust fund solvent,” Will explains. “But only, it turns out, until 2032. Today, after nearly 50 years of America’s population aging, the money problem is bigger than in 1977. And after a half-century of turning the elderly into America’s most privileged and prickly faction, the political class’ appetite for risk is smaller. ‘Saving’ Social Security by huge additional borrowing would intensify upward pressure on interest rates, hence downward pressure on economic growth. This could further worsen Social Security’s financing problems.”
Strengthening Social Security, Will stresses, won’t be easy but is essential.
“Government’s biggest, most beloved program is wealth redistribution masquerading as retirement program,” the Never Trump conservatives writes. “Social Security transfers wealth regressively, upward from today’s labor force to the elderly, who have had a lifetime of accumulation, and have paid off mortgages on homes that have risen in value. Is Congress going to take back a significant portion of this entitlement? Think about prying a bone from an entitled bulldog.”