A new report from the Social Security and Medicare trustees shows the Social Security Trust Fund is on track to run out of money faster than experts previously thought. According to the annual forecast, the fund will become completely insolvent by 2032. If lawmakers do not intervene before that deadline, current and future beneficiaries will face an automatic 22% cut to their monthly checks.
Following the release of the trustees’ report, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) issued a statement urging lawmakers to act quickly.
“Millions of retirees are facing a twenty to twenty-five percent cut in benefits which can throw them into poverty and put a greater strain on their families,” Cassidy said. “This latest report from the trustees is proof that Congress must step up now to protect Social Security before it’s too late. It’s only going to cost more and be more difficult to solve the longer we wait.”
To stop the impending cuts, Cassidy has pitched a plan to rescue the program by creating a national sovereign wealth fund. This proposed fund would exist independently of the current Social Security Trust Fund and would be used to generate investment returns to help cover the program’s massive financial shortfall.
The senator has actively promoted this idea to the public and to his fellow lawmakers over the last year. He recently detailed the framework during a U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearing in March.
Prior to that, he presented the idea at a public forum hosted by the AARP and gave a keynote address on the topic at the National Institute on Retirement Security’s 15th annual policy conference. He has also argued for the sovereign wealth fund in several opinion pieces.
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