Susan Collins fought for Social Security for some, but inaction on insolvency may mean lower benefits for all

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David Dancause is a retiree who is active in the Maine outdoor community serving on the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club board of directors.

A recent letter to the editor in the Bangor Daily News from a Susan Collins supporter praised the senator for her leadership and pointed to the Social Security Fairness Act as proof, which got me thinking. If Collins considers bringing Social Security benefits to more people a legacy achievement, then I want to set the record straight: The big generational problem I believe Collins has largely ignored is Social Security solvency.

If Collins saw fairness as a concern, why has she not taken the lead on the far larger problem: Social Security solvency? Trustees project the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund will exhaust its reserves in 2032, leaving ongoing revenue sufficient for only about 78% of scheduled benefits. For Maine, the implications are enormous. At 78 cents on the dollar, the shortfall approaches $2 billion a year less for Maine OASI beneficiaries. That 78 cents on the dollar translates to a $478 cut from the $2,000 average Maine monthly check!

Congress and Collins should have prevented this looming crisis decades ago. They still can, but they no longer have painless choices, which now include raising revenue, further increasing the retirement age, trim benefits or COLAs, or combining them.

Social Security solvency has been an issue throughout Collins’ 30 years in the Senate. In 2011, she called for reform “to ensure long-term solvency” and warned that “the longer we wait to act, the more difficult the task.” She ended with this ominous line: “The moment of truth is here.”

In 2011, Collins warned that delay would make the task harder. She was right. The question is why she didn’t follow with action.

This year, when AARP asked how she would strengthen Social Security, Collins called for a bipartisan commission. Sounds to me like more lip service. After decades of warnings and commissions, where was Collins’ fight on solvency? Collins’ warnings throughout these decades, without action, look less like rolling up her sleeves to fix it and more like a way to avoid owning it.

The Social Security Fairness Act expanded benefits for public employees and spouses. Give Collins credit. But adding $196 billion in costs while the trust fund may run dry deserves another word: reckless. The Tax Policy Center argued that its cost comes at the worst possible time for the program’s solvency.

Maine’s former senator Margaret Chase Smith once held the record for consecutive votes. No one remembers her for that! People remember her for recognizing a moment that demanded political courage and acting despite the risk. Her “Declaration of Conscience” became her legacy.

Just this July, Maine’s other senator, Angus King, joined a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic senators trying to force action on Social Security solvency (the PROMISE Act). Collins, a senator from the nation’s oldest state, did not. I think Collins should sign on and show us a plan that does more than study the problem.

Will 10,000 consecutive votes really be the best measure of Collins’ 30 years or more, as she has been touting? She knew Social Security’s financing problem was coming and warned about delay, but took no meaningful action. And here is the irony: if Collins wins another six-year term — likely her last — her final Senate year would be 2032, just as the Trust Fund could run dry.

But imagine we could roll back the clock a decade or more and give Collins one chance to confront a generational problem while there was still plenty of time to make the solution less painful. Would anyone care about 10,000 votes? Or would we ask Collins to work really hard to fix Social Security solvency, and make that vote one that truly truly counts?