I’m even willing to vote Republican, if necessary. My column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Special to the Post-Gazette

Apr 6, 2026

4:30 AM

The Social Security program is running out of money. The Social Security Administration estimates that by 2034, payroll taxes will cover around 75% of scheduled benefits. That means a 25% cut for most people. This problem stems from a combination of increased Social Security benefits and the imbalance between the number of retiring baby-boomers and the smaller current workforce.

Most Americans understand that Social Security is not a pension plan in which a beneficiary is paid some percentage of what has been paid in contributions. Instead, it is an intergenerational compact in which current workers partially fund the retirements of older workers in return for the promise that the same will be done for them.

A system going broke

It would be painful but not difficult to address this problem through modest curtailments in benefits — for example, no cost-of-living increases for a number of years — and modest increases in taxes — removing the current limit on wages subject to Social Security taxes, for example.

Solutions to the problem could be accomplished without introducing means testing for recipients, a step that would change Social Security from a universal program to just another welfare fund.

Eight years sounds like a long time. But, in political terms, it is not. It is just one presidential election cycle. Nothing will be done to save Social Security unless that becomes a major issue in the 2028 presidential election. Whoever wins that election will likely set the political agenda through 2035, by which time the crisis will either have been resolved or the Social Security system we know will have ended.

You may think that it would not be possible for politicians in Washington to allow Social Security to go broke, that the political fallout would be too great. But as the recent expiration of Obamacare subsidies showed, our politicians have become so skilled at blaming the other side, and we voters have become so partisan, that we sit by while great harms happen.

It is definitely possible that Washington will do nothing to save Social Security.

The failure to address the Social Security shortfall shows that both political parties treat problems as political fodder rather than solve them. That is why the voters will have to force politicians to act on the Social Security crisis.

A radical non-partisan act

What is required is a radical act of public non-partisanship. If necessary, we have to be willing to vote for candidates of the other party.

I am a completely reliable Democratic Party presidential election voter. I always vote and I always vote for the Democratic Party candidate. My party cannot afford to lose the votes of people like me and hope to win a presidential election.

The same is true of the Republican Party and reliable Republican Party presidential election voters. Voters like us are worth more than campaign contributions to the two major parties. You can always get money from somewhere else. But losing our votes would be impossible to make up.

Because Social Security is so crucial to so many people, including my wife and me, but also to many millions of poor and working class Americans, I am going to do something unprecedented in my life. I am going to put my presidential election vote in play on the single issue of Social Security in the 2028 presidential election. And I hope others will do the same.

I am going to sign a pledge and send it to the major party candidates in the presidential primaries and again in the general election. The pledge will state that I am a reliable Democratic Party voter in presidential elections. But I pledge not to vote for any candidate for President who does not publicly state that Social Security is in crisis, that both decreases in benefits and increases in taxes are necessary to fix the problem and does not promise to save Social Security through the normal legislative process. Candidates will have to pledge to get rid of the filibuster to the extent that it blocks a fix for Social Security.

This part of my pledge just promises that potentially I will not vote for my party’s presidential candidate. That would be tough enough for a party to swallow. But my pledge will then go into non-partisan territory.

A pledge

I will further pledge that if only one presidential candidate in the general election meets these criteria, I will vote for that candidate no matter which party the candidate represents. If a few million voters sign a pledge like that, Social Security will be saved.

I know that the prospect of voting for the presidential candidate of the other party seems unthinkable for many people. It does for me, too. I would be ignoring all the other issues that matter to me.

But I comfort myself that if this approach worked, it would force the two parties to work together to solve a genuinely difficult problem. And the example of Social Security could begin the process of healing the hyper-partisanship that has so harmed American public life. A pledge like this might actually heal our politics.

Bruce Ledewitz, a contributing writer for the Post-Gazette’s editorial page, is professor of law emeritus at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He writes every other Monday. The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University. his previous article was “Pennsylvania is the climate change problem.”

First Published: April 6, 2026, 4:30 a.m.