Donald Trump and J.D. Vance Say No Cuts for Social Security. That’s Impossible.

As Congress prepares for a fiscal policy fight over raising the federal government’s debt ceiling, former President Donald Trump and one of the rising stars of the national conservative movement have issued a sharp demand: Don’t touch Social Security.

“Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” Trump said in a video message released by his presidential campaign Friday night. Shortly afterward, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) posted his agreement, tweeting that “Trump is 100 percent correct.”

Refusing even to consider changes to Social Security might be a tidy way to pander to older Americans, but it’s not a functional plan for entitlements. In fact, it’s actually an impossible situation.

If Congress refuses to do anything to alter Social Security’s trajectory, benefit cuts will automatically kick in when the program hits insolvency. That point will be reached in 2035, according to the most recent Social Security Administration trustee’s report. If that happens, the trustees estimate that Social Security will be able to pay only 80 percent of promised benefits.

Promising to do nothing, then, amounts to promising a 20 percent benefit cut in a little more than a decade. There is no getting around that fact.

That’s a classic political strategy: Kick the can and deal with the consequences later. Even so, Trump, Vance, and others who advocate this approach should be confronted with the reality of what they are saying: full benefits for anyone getting Social Security now, but guaranteed cuts for anyone who expects to collect Social Security after 2035.

If you want to avoid cutting a single penny from Social Security but also dodge the benefit cuts coming in the middle of the next decade, the only available option is to raise taxes. Big time.

The combined shortfall for Social Security and Medicare—the federal old-age health insurance program, parts of which are headed for i