Mitt Romney on Social Security

 Former Massachusetts governor and Utah Senator Mitt Romney published a guest editorial in the New York Times on Friday, December 19, 2025, in the New York Times.

The entire article ---https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/opinion/romney-tax-the-rich.html

While I do not agree with all of Senator Romney’s solutions, I applaud his raising the issue in a widely read forum. 

In brief, he raised the issue that I and other deficit hawks (alarmists) have been talking about the last 15 years. If we do not reform social security soon, the system, as we now know it, will have to cut benefits to all recipients by approximately 23% across the board by 2034. 

When I first saw this statistic some years ago, I realized it would be annoying but would not affect my lifestyle all that much. When I broke down the demographic data, however, I realized that it would be devastating to millions of the Americans who now depend on Social Security as their primary income source. I even wrote about it in MR on 4/25/22 in a post entitled “My Final Entitlement Rant.”                  

Romney’s thesis was that for wealthy people such as he, the benefit should be cut more than 23% if not eliminated. In recent years, I have talked to several people in the 5–25-million-dollar net worth range about a possible cut in THEIR benefits. A few agreed that it was a reasonable idea given the crisis that the nation will someday be facing. Somewhat surprisingly, the idea was met with outrage by the wealthiest people in my informal and unscientific sample. Comments included— “I contributed for 45 years, and the money is mine” or “What are you, a socialist in your old age.” 

Well. If you know me, it is quite clear that I am not a socialist. I applaud Senator Romney for bringing up the issue and, as a charter member of the elite 1% of Americans, he is accepting that something must give in the current system to protect millions of Americans in their old age in the future. 

As I have written in the past, this is not sophisticated math. It is simply arithmetic. Yet, years trickle by and not much has been done.

I sent a draft of this post to a long time MR reader who told me that I worry too much. He conjured up the famous quip from the great Winston Churchill— “Americans always do the right thing, once all other alternatives are exhausted.”

Perhaps old Winnie was correct. But, when the political hacks on both sides of the aisle finally get around to doing the right thing, will it be too late?

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