The PROMISE Act could fast-track Social Security cuts through an unelected board. The real solution protects benefits and makes millionaires and billionaires pay.
Summary
Social Security faces a real financing challenge, but politicians and corporate interests exploit that challenge to manufacture panic and pressure working Americans into accepting benefit cuts. The PROMISE Act does not directly reduce benefits; it creates an accelerated process that could allow an unelected advisory board and a lame-duck Congress to advance cuts, privatization, a higher retirement age, or weaker cost-of-living adjustments with limited accountability. Social Security is an earned covenant—not charity—and demands that lawmakers protect it by requiring wealthy Americans to contribute on more of their income.
- The PROMISE Act creates a dangerous shortcut. It directs the Social Security Advisory Board to prepare legislation designed to finance the trust funds for at least 50 years, after which Congress would consider the proposal under expedited procedures.
- The bill limits democratic accountability. Committees could amend the proposal, but automatic discharge provisions, restricted amendments, and a 100-hour cap could move sweeping retirement policy faster than its consequences deserve.
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Social Security is not going bankrupt. The 2026 Trustees Report projects that the retirement trust fund can pay full scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032; continuing revenue would then cover about 78 percent unless Congress acts.
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Workers face an unfair tax structure. In 2026, Social Security taxes apply only to the first $184,500 in wages, allowing millionaires to stop contributing after reaching that threshold.
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A progressive solution raises revenue instead of cutting benefits. Congress can lift or eliminate the taxable earnings cap, tax high-income investment income, improve minimum benefits, and adopt a cost-of-living formula that better reflects seniors’ expenses.
Social Security does not need a backroom commission that disguises austerity as bipartisanship. It needs transparent legislation that protects every earned benefit, expands retirement security, and finally requires millionaires and billionaires to contribute fairly.
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Social Security Is in Danger—But Not for the Reason Washington Claims
Social Security faces danger, but the program itself is not the threat. The danger comes from politicians who manufacture a crisis, conceal their choices behind commissions, and tell working people that retirement security must surrender to the demands of concentrated wealth.
The PROMISE Act illustrates that strategy. Its reassuring name masks a procedural mechanism that could place Social Security’s future in the hands of an advisory board and then accelerate its recommendations through Congress. The legislation would direct the Social Security Advisory Board to develop a bill capable of financing the trust funds for at least 50 years. Congressional committees could hold hearings and offer amendments, but the proposal could automatically reach the floor, debate would face a 100-hour limit, and amendments would remain constrained by the legislation’s financing requirements.
That process matters because procedure determines power. Politicians rarely announce that they plan to cut earned retirement benefits. They create commissions, impose deadlines, invoke actuarial necessity, and later claim that the process left them no alternative. AARP has opposed the PROMISE Act’s accelerated structure and argued that Social Security legislation deserves the regular legislative process, public scrutiny, transparency, and meaningful debate.
Bernie Sanders has warned Democrats not to provide bipartisan cover for this approach. His warning deserves attention. A proposal produced before an election could reach a lame-duck Congress afterward, allowing retiring or defeated lawmakers to shape retirement policy for decades while facing little electoral accountability. Sanders argues that the measure could enable benefit cuts or privatization through an unelected commission.
The financing problem remains real, but Washington routinely describes it dishonestly. The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund can pay all scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032. If Congress refuses to act, ongoing revenue would still finance approximately 78 percent of scheduled retirement benefits. Social Security therefore faces a revenue shortfall—not bankruptcy, disappearance, or total insolvency.
Congress should fix that shortfall without cutting one earned dollar. In 2026, workers pay Social Security taxes on wages up to $184,500. A teacher earning $60,000 contributes on every dollar. A corporate executive earning millions stops contributing after the taxable maximum. Investment income—including capital gains and dividends—generally escapes the Social Security payroll tax entirely. That structure rewards wealth while overburdening work.
The progressive answer starts by lifting or eliminating the taxable earnings cap and requiring very high-income households to contribute on investment income. Congress should protect ordinary retirement accounts and modest investment earnings while taxing capital gains, dividends, carried interest, stock-based compensation, and major business distributions received by the wealthy.
Lawmakers should also raise minimum benefits so that no person who worked throughout a lifetime retires into poverty. They should calculate cost-of-living adjustments using the expenses seniors actually face, including healthcare, prescription drugs, housing, food, and utilities. Previous expansion legislation from Sanders and Elizabeth Warren proposed increasing annual benefits by $2,400 while extending solvency for 75 years by making high earners contribute more.
Social Security represents a promise between generations. Workers finance it with every paycheck, and society guarantees that retirement, disability, or the death of a breadwinner will not automatically produce destitution. Congress must not break that promise to preserve tax privileges for billionaires.
Social Security remains affordable. What America cannot afford is a political system that demands sacrifice from workers while shielding accumulated wealth from responsibility.
