Voters want straight talk from candidates on this No. 1 issue

Swing-state voters have a message for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris: Level with us.

It seems that sizable majorities want our next president, and whoever controls Congress, to do whatever it takes to shore up Social Security before huge cuts kick in come 2033 - just nine years from now - and to be specific about their plans.

What do I mean by huge cuts? How about 21%. And why 2033? Because that's when the Social Security trust fund will be depleted, according to the latest projection from the Social Security Administration's trustees.

Before going further, let me emphasize something that some people always get wrong: Social Security is not, cannot and never will go bankrupt. But unless something is done before 2033, its reserve (think of a giant savings account) will run out. This past spring, that reserve (officially called the Trust Fund) stood at $2.788 trillion.

What happens when it runs out? Social Security payouts will then become utterly dependent on whatever comes in from payroll taxes. And that projection is currently 79 cents in the dollar.

Read: Harris and Trump need to win over older voters on more than just Social Security and Medicare

Why is it running out? Look around. Older Americans are retiring in droves- some 10,000 baby boomers daily, a "silver tsunami" projected to continue through 2029. This means 10,000 fewer people paying payroll taxes.

Read: More than 4 million people are turning 65 this year, and it will affect you - no matter how old you are

But there aren't enough younger workers to make up for them. Birth rates at multidecade lows and antipathy in some quarters to even legal immigration mean that there are more older folks being supported by fewer younger folks. In simple Econ 101 parlance, there's too much demand for Social Security benefits, but not enough supply. That spells pain.

Here's where our next president comes in. I mentioned recently that neither candidate-not Trump, nor Harris-have said, specifically, what they will do to prevent the Social Security ax from dropping on tens of millions of Americans in just a few years. Perhaps they think that you don't win elections by being candid about problems and offering detailed solutions to them.

And yet that's what voters in the seven swing states that will decide the election want.

According to the Peterson Foundation, a New York-based think tank that studies fiscal and economic challenges facing the country, virtually all voters in those states - 96% - "say it's important for the presidential candidates to have a plan to prevent automatic cuts to Social Security."

These voters are smart. They know that preventing drastic Social Security cuts involves pain. The Peterson Foundation notes that:

-- 60% of voters favor higher Social Security taxes

-- 63% back a combination of tax increases and "benefit adjustments" (defined as smaller cuts)

-- 75% favor increasing taxes and cutting benefits for higher-income Americans

-- 52% support a gradual raising of the retirement age for those under age 50.

These are serious ideas. But each involves the inflicting of some pain on the electorate: higher taxes, a higher retirement age, reduced benefits for those who are financially better off. Someone, somewhere, will have to make a sacrifice - and soon.

And yet with just days to go, all we've heard from Harris and Trump is that they'll "protect" Social Security. They sound just like the majority of Washington politicians going back decades: afraid to speak truth to the American people about what that will entail. Talk about cowardly.

But you know what's worse than avoiding the issue? Flat-out lying. It's only factual to note that one candidate - Trump - has been a first-rate manufacturer and distributor of disinformation (also known as lies) about Social Security. Speaking earlier this year of President Joe Biden, Trump claimed that "this man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security." And Trump has been claiming for years that people in the country illegally were "skipping the line" to get Social Security benefits.

Baloney. In fact, notes Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O'Malley, the opposite is true.

"Immigrant people working in the United States outside of having legal status cannot by law receive any benefits from Social Security," he told an interviewer in early October. On top of that, he said, those workers pay about $20 billion into the system each year - money that migrants not here legally will never see.

For tens of millions of Americans, there is no more important issue than Social Security. How about some direct, honest, straight talk about it from our leaders?

-Paul Brandus

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