Men's Lifestyle August 11, 2026 0 Comments

Why a Bipartisan Social Security Shake-Up Could Be the Biggest Threat to Your Financial Future—And How to Protect Yourself Now

Alright, let me ask you this — when was the last time you saw a government plan so loaded with nostalgia and political ghost stories that it practically needed a séance just to come alive? Yeah, that’s right, we’ve got these eight “centrist” senators dusting off the old Social Security overhaul playbook — led by none other than Dick Durbin and Bill Cassidy — aiming to wrestle with the biggest safety net for 59 million seniors. But here’s the kicker: instead of a straightforward fix, they’re unleashing a bipartisan board to cook up a plan that probably means tax hikes and benefit cuts down the line. Meanwhile, you wonder, isn’t it a little too soon to tango with this tired idea? Especially with the political circus heating up and progressives charging in? Sometimes I think we need some secret bunker-grade firepower to just obliterate these rehearsed negotiations before another decade of dithering hits. Spoiler alert: this ain’t your run-of-the-mill bill—it’s a chess game with all the usual players coming back from the political dead, and yet again, the same old Simpson-Bowles specter looms large. Buckle up, because this fight over Social Security isn’t just about numbers—it’s about which ghosts get to haunt our future. LEARN MORE

5 min read

I know we’re running out of missiles and other forms of high ordnance because we’ve dumped so much of it on Iran. But dammit, for all that money down through the years, there must be a secret stash of earth-shattering doomsday weaponry down in a bunker somewhere in, say, South Dakota. Uncrate that shit and just drop it on this idea so it dies instantly in a torrent of fire. From NOTUS:

A group of eight centrist senators is attempting to compel Congress to revamp Social Security, in what many in Washington see as the first real effort at overhauling the government’s biggest program in more than a decade.

The push, led by retiring Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), sets the stage for a major confrontation later this year with potential consequences for the 59 million seniors who currently receive benefits.

Stay on target … stay on target …

Their bill, the PROMISE Act, does not directly cut Social Security benefits or raise taxes to avert the program’s approaching budget shortfall. Rather, it would task a bipartisan board with writing a plan to keep the pension system funded for another 50 years, likely through trillions of dollars in tax hikes and benefit cuts. The legislation would also establish parliamentary rules aimed at pushing Congress to act on the board’s proposal. Even if it passes, the bill would likely only spawn another fight over Social Security in the next Congress, which would still have to approve the board’s proposal to be pushed into law. But senior groups are mobilizing now to stop what they see as an effort to slash retiree benefits, while deficit hawks argue failure to act risks putting the U.S. government on a dangerously unsustainable debt trajectory.

In the name of God, someone take Durbin aside and give him a glass of warm milk and distract him until everybody else goes out of town.

Is it necessary to detail all the ways this is the wrong idea at the absolutely worst time? Let’s just pick one. There is no reason for a bipartisan anything on any major issue unless/until the Republican party regains its senses. Hitching your wagon right now to Senator Bill Cassidy of all people is as tone-deaf as the Rock of Gibraltar. And to start talking about “reforming” Social Security at a time when there is progressive energy burning through the entire party ahead of the most important midterm election since God alone knows when is even worse.

The group of eight is targeting the “lame duck” period after the November midterm elections but before the new Congress begins in January as their best chance of success. President Donald Trump has promised to reject cuts to Social Security, and former President Joe Biden never pursued a deal with Republicans on the program.

“This is the first time that Social Security solvency has gotten serious legislative attention on a bipartisan basis in several decades,” said Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think-tank that supports the plan. “It is a major breakthrough in conversations that have long been stagnant.”

This simply bellows of a political establishment trying to fulfill one of its undying wishes before the barbarians take over next January. The head of this Bipartisan Policy Center is Margaret Spellings, who was an important person in the previous Worst Republican Administration Ever, that of George W. Bush. The president of BPC Action is an old Joe Lieberman hand and was the policy director for Lieberman’s ghastly presidential campaign. The director of its housing policy comes out of Bob Dole’s old shop. There’s another vice president who moved from the W. administration to that of Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. The BPC’s energy team is led by yet another piece of W. flotsam. There’s another senior VP who worked for Bill Frist.

I mean, do I have to go on? This is the political undead, zombified relics of an earlier, relatively sane Republican party and the long-gone Clinton Democratic party—which, frankly, is more of a nuisance these days. This is like those green specters in the mountain who come back to hang around with Viggo Mortensen. And, suddenly, the kitty comes screeching out of the burlap.

There has been no consensus about how to head off this long-approaching cliff. In December 2010, a bipartisan commission led by Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles proposed roughly $4 trillion in deficit reduction measures in benefits cuts and tax hikes. President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner came close to a deal on the “Simpson-Bowles” proposal, but it fell apart and similar talks have never since resumed. The current plan grew out of Durbin’s conversations with Bowles, to whom the senator vented in private conversations that Congress was not dealing with big issues like Social Security, according to a Durbin aide.

Oh, my sweet Lord in heaven, the biggest ghost of all comes romping onto center stage again. Simpson-Bowles, the golden Beltway dream of the consultant class, President Barack Obama’s worst idea, the final failure of the Wise Men (and Women) theory of national policy. The reason the S-B plan “fell apart” was because the commission refused to endorse its own plan, which Paul Krugman memorably described thus:

Simpson–Bowles is terrible. It mucks around with taxes but is obsessed with lowering marginal rates despite a complete absence of evidence that this is important. It offers nothing on Medicare that isn’t already in the Affordable Care Act. And it raises the Social Security retirement age because life expectancy has risen, completely ignoring the fact that life expectancy has only gone up for the well-off and well-educated while stagnating or even declining among the people who need the program most.

But the fundamental political problem remains. There is no good-faith partner for this kind of project.

Durbin began meeting last year with colleagues about legislation to force floor action on Social Security, and Durbin held a meeting in his office in early September 2025 with Senators Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Angus King (I-Maine), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), Cassidy and Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Durbin and Crapo were the last two members of the Senate to have served on Simpson-Bowles.

Cassidy and Tillis are gone next year, and, in any event, they’ve both proven themselves to be towers of Jell-O when it counted. Kaine’s influence has waned, and as much as I like and respect King, he can’t be the balance against the crazy all by himself. If you can’t kill this idea with eternal fire, can you at least drape the Senate chamber in garlic so Simpson-Bowles never rises again? You want to take this on? Elect a Democratic Senate and start fresh with some new people and new ideas. See what senators Talarico and El-Sayed think of the problem.