Giving Compass' Take:

· With US debt rising unsustainably, the need for Social Security and Medicare reform only rises. Here, David Schoenbrod explains the need for lawmakers to stabilize Social Security and Medicare and ensure every voter is informed of the costs needed to permanently stabilize the debt.

· What options are available to avoid cuts in Social Security and Medicare?

· Read more on cuts to Social Security and Medicare and what's next for healthcare reform.

The debate about the presidency of the President Donald Trump distracts us from other important issues. One such issue on August 14, which marked the 83rd birthday of Social Security, is whether its record of paying full benefits will make it to the 100th birthday. When the first Gen Xers retire in the 2030s, they may well be the first generation to get fleeced.

The Social Security trust fund is currently in deficit yet will receive enough general revenue transfers (financed annually by your taxes) to pay full benefits until 2034. Medicare’s trust fund will go belly up in 2026.

And then what? Congress has shown it prefers borrowing more money rather than making the hard decisions. Yet the credit card will eventually max out. As then-Federal Reserve Board Chair Ben Bernanke told Congress in 2011, "The unsustainable trajectories of deficits and debt [under current policies] cannot actually happen, because creditors would never be willing to lend to a government whose debt, relative to national income, is rising without limit."

Read the full article about cuts in Social Security and Medicare by David Schoenbrod at the Manhattan Institute.