The Cliff Is Now Clearly in View. Why Are We Stepping on the Gas?

Mr. Furman, a contributing Opinion writer, was the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2017.

The first major public policy issue I worked on in the White House, almost 30 years ago, was President Bill Clinton’s call to “save Social Security first.” Though the fund wasn’t projected to run dry for another three decades, the country seemed gripped by the issue. A few years later, George W. Bush felt strongly enough about the looming crisis that he spent much of his political capital pushing a strategy to resolve it.

This week the Social Security trustees announced that the trust fund for retirees and survivors will be exhausted in just six years. That’s six years before tens of millions of Americans could see their........

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