Focus should be on saving Social Security

Even by Washington, D.C. standards, the situation is absurd.

On one hand, a bipartisan group of senators is discussing changes to Social Security — including the possibility of raising the retirement age — to extend its solvency.

On the other, the Supreme Court is weighing the legality of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, the cost of which is close to half a trillion dollars.

As loan forgiveness advocates and activists profess, students face crippling debt from high tuition costs. Paying back their loans makes it all but impossible to buy a house, or take other important steps on the path to the American dream.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley told Politico’s Massachusetts Playbook that “failure is not an option.”

“I’m not conceding defeat,” Pressley said hours after justices heard arguments over the debtrelief plan she and Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent two years pressing President Joe Biden to enact.

Debt relief would be “transformational,” Pressley said, for those struggling to buy homes or pay for child care.

It would also have a transformational effect on the national debt, all but guaranteeing that spending cuts will be on the table in the future for social service and other programs.

While the High Court is debating whether Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is justified under the Heroes Act of 2003, much of the argument around it hinge on “fairness.”

It’s allegedly unfair to make student borrowers have to pay back the loans they took out, and it’s unfair that those who took out huge loans have big chunks of their budget eaten by these payments. But it’s also unfair that people who worked to pay off their loans — and did — are out in the cold, as are those who never went to college, but whose taxes will bear the brunt of the $400 billion bill down the road.

It’s also unfair for seniors on Social Security to have to worry if they will have enough money to live on. They’ve worked for decades, paid in to the system, and now fear that the fund will become insolvent. This specter has been raised for years, through several administrations, and the can keeps getting kicked down the road. The retirement age used to be 65, now it’s 67. If you need to retire before that, you lose benefits.

The Biden Administration has no qualms about passing a $1.2T Infrastructure Law and promoting a $400B student loan forgiveness plan, but has made no move to bolster Social Security with a similar influx of cash.

A report released by the Congressional Budget Office earlier this month warned that the Social Security trust fund could run out of money by 2032 — a year earlier than previously expected — without changes to existing policies.

As The Hill reported, the senators involved in the bipartisan group say they are trying to keep the talks from becoming politicized.

Cuts and spending will always be politicized when lawmakers use fiscal policies to promote their own agendas and court prized voting blocs.

Student loan forgiveness has grabbed the national mic and isn’t letting go. Funding Social Security deserves the same level of advocacy.