Josh Lewis was a longtime conservative who began to question the GOP after their embrace of Trump and his brand of populist nationalism. In an attempt to find a solution, Josh studied conservative thinkers going back decades and began Saving Elephants, a blog and podcast dedicated to defining the conservative movement for the next generation.
Josh talks about his journey and the difficulty of balancing restraint in government with the need for action.
Social Security faces a funding crisis by 2032 that could cut retirement benefits by 22%. Learn what's driving the shortfall and how it could be fixed.
A financial tsunami of giant proportions is heading our way. And it is due to arrive in about six years. Policymakers have known about this tsunami for some time, but in June, we found out the Big Wave is taller than anyone knew.
That’s when the Social Security Trustees released their latest report on the financial health of the popular Social Security retirement program. According to the trustees’ report, the outlook is not good – Social Security’s solvency is in danger. By 2032, the Social Security fund will fall short by about $2.5 trillion of the money needed to pay the 52 million American retirees their full retirement benefits. Previously, it was thought that the tsunami would make landfall in 2034, but the finances are deteriorating faster than expected. If no presidential and congressional intervention is mounted, retirees will take about a 22 percent haircut, meaning any senior beneficiary who was receiving $3000 per month will see that chopped to about $2300 per month, a loss of about $8000 per year.
That’s not chump change for retirees living on a fixed monthly income. Three-quarters of American seniors depend heavily on their monthly benefits, and nearly half would be living in poverty without it. Social Security income is crucial to retired women and racial minorities, who have suffered from historical wage discrimination. In short, Social Security has been the greatest anti-poverty program ever.
Indeed, it has been a vital part of the financial fabric of the American dream for almost a hundred years, when it was launched by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935. During economic downturns, it acts as an “automatic stabilizer,” keeping money in people’s pockets, maintaining consumer spending levels, providing customers for businesses, and preventing deeper recessions. Social Security has been the most stable component of our nation’s retirement system, especially compared with Americans’ other chief sources of savings — their homeownership and their 401(k)s and IRAs — which are struggling amid the current affordability crunch driven by rising costs for housing, healthcare, and groceries.
Why is Social Security so…insecure?
Given the foundational importance of Social Security to the nation’s retirement system and overall economic vitality, why has it reached the current “red threat” level? And what are the nation’s political leaders doing about it? 2032 is not that far away. A Social Security crisis in six years means it will loom over the next president’s term.
Most experts agree that there have been a few causes for the growing crisis. First, it’s good news that Americans are living longer, but it also means they are collecting more in Social Security retirement benefits. In the 1950s, the average retiree received a monthly Social Security check of $554 (inflation-adjusted), was retired for 10 to 15 years, and received a total lifetime payout of $65,000 to $110,000. An average retiree today receives a bit more than $2000 per month for 15 to 25 years and will receive a total lifetime payout of $380,000 to $640,000. Sure, American workers receive much higher wages today and pay more into the Social Security fund, but it’s not been enough to keep up with the increased benefits being paid out.
Second, there has been an upward redistribution of income due to greater inequality among wage-earners. Consequently, revenue from the Social Security payroll tax has been declining as a share of national income. The funding mechanism for Social Security is peculiar. Unlike income taxes, in which the more income a person earns, the higher the tax on every dollar earned, or unlike Medicare, in which every American pays the same tax rate on every dollar earned, Social Security has a cutoff called a payroll cap. Any income earned by an individual above $184,500 is exempt from the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax. Their employers also stop paying their payroll match, so a total of 12.4 percent in tax revenue is lost. About 11 million Americans exceed the taxable maximum wage and stop paying into the Social Security fund.
Consequently, less total income is being taxed by the Social Security administration. In 1982, just 10 percent of national wage income went to high-wage earners whose income escaped further taxation by exceeding the payroll tax cap. But over the last quarter century, close to 17 percent of wage income has gone over the cap and therefore has not been subject to the Social Security tax. This upward redistribution of wage income has substantially reduced the revenue flowing into the Social Security trust fund.
A third cause undermining Social Security’s finances is relatively new but will have an increasing impact. That’s the passage from last July of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), which gave a special tax break to seniors over 65, reducing the amount of tax they pay into the Social Security trust fund. This temporary tax break will last only through 2028, but the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the loss of tax revenue from OBBB will accelerate the projected depletion date of the Social Security trust fund by a full year.
A fourth cause, according to the Trustees’ report, is Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Although those policies have been in effect for only a short time, they are already making this problem worse. The Trustees’ report concluded that lower immigration will deepen Social Security’s financial hole because many immigrants are working-age adults who pay into the system for many years before they collect benefits. Trump’s immigration policies will result in a loss of Social Security revenue, further endangering its already deteriorating financial condition.
Another uncertain factor is the impact of AI. If, as many fear, AI accelerates rising income inequality and stagnant or reduced wages, it will further reduce the payroll tax receipts that currently pay for Social Security.
Can Social Security—and retirees’ benefits—be saved?
So, is it possible to save retirees’ Social Security benefits? The short answer is: absolutely. This is not an economic or financial problem; it is a classic “guns versus butter” dilemma for modern governments. In other words, it’s a political will problem rather than a budget priority. There are numerous adjustments that could be made to shore up Social Security benefits. Here are just a few of them:
* Eliminate the unfair Social Security payroll cap, currently set at $184,500, beyond which an individual and their employer pay no more Social Security tax. The practical effect of the cap is that billionaire bankers and CEOs contribute a far lower percentage of their income to Social Security than their secretaries and chauffeurs do. Requiring every American and their employers to pay 6.2% on every dollar of income would not only be fairer and more equal, but also raise hundreds of billions of dollars to close the financing gap. That’s how the Medicare tax works; why not Social Security?
* Apply the Social Security tax to investment income. Many affluent Americans derive much of their wealth from investment income rather than wages. Yet they make zero Social Security contributions based on that investment income. By applying Social Security rules to this income — which is how Medicare is partly funded — we would raise billions of dollars to help stabilize Social Security.
* Eliminate tax shelters and loopholes for one-percenter households and businesses, including for capital gains, “carried interest” and the truly outrageous “step-up in basis,” which exclusively benefits inherited wealth. These function as direct federal subsidies to the most affluent Americans, and they cost the national treasury some $350 billion per year.
Other tax deductions result in tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies for the wealthiest Americans. These include federal subsidies of individual retirement savings accounts, like 401(k)s and IRAs – nearly 80 percent of the federal subsidy goes to the top 20 percent of income earners – and the home mortgage interest deduction – a massive 86 percent of this federal subsidy goes to Americans in the top 10-percent income bracket. These tax-code favoritisms are nothing more than entitlements for wealthier Americans.
In short, just a few revenue streams would raise more than enough money not only to save Social Security but also to increase the Social Security payout. Doing that would provide a more stable, secure retirement for every American.
Will our political leaders save Social Security?
According to the Social Security trustees’ June report, the amount of additional funds needed to keep paying full benefits for the next 25 years is 1.06 percent of the nation’s GDP. To put that in perspective, the Trump administration has proposed increasing military spending by $420 billion next year, equivalent to about 1.4 percent of GDP. So “We the People” have financial and budgetary options, but are “We the Leaders” listening? It’s all a matter of what we, as a society, decide to prioritize.
Steven Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote, and political reform director at New America. See more of his writing at his Substack newsletter DemocracySOS.
People hold signs as Democratic Congressional candidate Brad Lander speaks during an election eve rally at Silo on June 22, 2026 in the East Williamsburg neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough in New York City.
As a student, I was taught that politics is a contest of ideas. Experience has shown me otherwise.
In a recent New York Times interview with Ezra Klein, conservative activist Chris Rufo captured this reality succinctly: “While we should have the facts on our side, and while we should use logic, by itself, it’s insufficient. Politics operates on a deeper level, an emotional level. Politics occurs on the field of sentiment and public opinion much more than on the field of abstract argumentation.”
That conclusion may unsettle many Democrats. Yet, stripped of ideology, it aligns with decades of research in political psychology. Voters rarely decide by weighing policy papers or fact-checking speeches. They respond to stories about who they are, what threatens them, and where the country is headed.
This insight helps explain one of the Democratic Party’s central challenges in the Trump era. For years, Democrats have assumed elections are won through better evidence and more detailed plans. Donald Trump has operated differently. With the instincts of an entertainer, he leads with narrative on issues from immigration to national decline, treating facts as optional and subordinate to the story he wants to tell.
This is not a call for Democrats to abandon facts or embrace demagoguery. Quite the opposite. Facts are essential for governing. But campaigning is a different task. Governing demands evidence, expertise, and compromise. Campaigns require something more fundamental: a story that convinces people their lives can change.
Facts do not interpret themselves. A number can describe a problem, but it cannot tell voters why that problem matters, who is responsible, or what kind of future is possible. For that, politics requires narrative.
Trump’s political strength has never been policy detail. It has been narrative compression. “Build the wall,” “drain the swamp,” and “Make America Great Again” each reduced complex problems to a story voters could grasp instantly: someone took something from you, corrupt elites let it happen, and only a strong leader can restore what was lost.
These stories were often false, inflammatory, and cruel. But they were emotionally clear. They identified villains. They named victims. They promised restoration. They turned politics into a drama in which Trump alone could punish the guilty and redeem the nation.
Democrats too often answered those stories with fact-checks, program descriptions, and warnings about norms. Those responses were necessary, but they were not enough. A correction is not a counter-story. Telling voters that Trump is wrong does not automatically tell them what Democrats believe, whom they are fighting for, or what kind of country they want to build.
The recent Democratic primary in New York City offered a different example of the same underlying lesson. The candidates who broke through did not win because voters had studied every line of their platforms. They won because they connected policy to lived experience.
Affordability was not presented as a spreadsheet problem. It was a moral problem: people who teach the children, staff the hospitals, serve the food, clean the offices, and ride the trains can no longer afford to live in the city they sustain. That is a story. It gives policy emotional weight without abandoning reality.
Successful candidates make voters feel seen before asking them to accept a program. They connect public policy to private anxiety. They make government visible in the places where people actually live.
A democratic politics worthy of the name must be factual without being bloodless, emotional without being dishonest, and institutional without being abstract. That means changing how Democrats talk about the issues they already claim to care about. Democracy cannot be only about norms, courts, and constitutional principles, important as those are. It must also be about whether one person in the White House can disrupt a school, threaten a city’s budget, politicize the civil service, or turn public programs into instruments of personal power.
Economic policy cannot be only about growth rates, job numbers, or inflation statistics. It must be about whether people who work hard can afford a home, raise children, care for aging parents, and retire without fear. Education policy cannot be only about funding formulas or test scores. It must be about whether children are being prepared for freedom, citizenship, and a future larger than their parents’ anxieties.
The same applies to immigration, health care, climate, crime, and the cost of living. Democrats have policies on all of these issues. What they often lack is a common story that ties them together.
Trump’s story is dark but clear: the country has been stolen from you, and only I can take it back. Democrats need an answer that is just as emotionally intelligible but far more honest: the country belongs to all of us, and government should help people build lives of dignity, security, and possibility.
Rufo is right about one thing. Politics does not occur mainly on the field of abstract argument. It occurs where people feel fear, hope, anger, pride, resentment, and belonging. But facts still matter. They matter enormously. Facts alone do not win elections. Stories do. The party that learns to tell a truthful story about the lives people are actually living will have the best chance not only to win power, but to govern with purpose once it has it.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.
The 250th anniversary of American independence should remind us what’s wrong with gerrymandering. Due to partisanship, however, it now not only persists but rachets tighter in a tit-for-tat cycle that threatens to strangle representative rule. There is a solution to gerrymandering, however, if only politicians will act.
Inspired by revolutionary Enlightenment Era ideals, the Declaration of Independence and the new state constitutions of 1776 call for representative rule. The people would be sovereign, they proclaimed, with governments drawing their just powers from the consent of the governed. Nothing of the sort had ever been tried on a large scale and the founders struggled with how to implement it. Everything turned on establishing a truly representative governing assembly for each newly independent colony or state.
“The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this representative assembly,” John Adams wrote in his 1776 Thoughts on Government essay, which guided the drafting of most of the new state constitution and influenced Thomas Jefferson’s thinking for the Declaration of Independence. Each legislative assembly, Adams wrote, “should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.” All interests should be duly represented, he stressed. “Equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it,” he wrote. “Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.”
His words ring true today.
During the early republic, although legislative and congressional districts failed to fulfill the ideal of fully representing all interests, they generally avoided the worst effects of modern gerrymandering by following existing political boundaries, such as town and county lines. This approach at least insured regional representation.
As a practical matter, 19th century partisan leaders lacked the precise voting records and detailed maps to crack and pack districts like their 21st century counterparts. They did have some sense of how neighborhoods and communities voted however and used it to affect a 19th century version of gerrymandering by selectively creating multi-member districts for state legislative and federal congressional offices. For example, if a clear majority voters in a given city with four members of Congress typically voted for the same party, legislators could mandate that all four would be elected in one at-large district, with each voter casting four votes.
With the parties then picking candidates and many states using ballots that allowed voters to cast a single vote for all of a party’s candidates, at-large congressional and legislative districts virtually assured that the majority party’s candidates would sweep all the seats in a multi-member district even if they might lose in parts of it.
Five states carried this approach so far as to have all their congressional candidates run statewide, which assured that the majority party won every seat much as a winner-take-all approach for electing presidential electors gives all a state’s electoral votes to one candidate no matter how slim his majority. Both systems gained favor in the early 19th century as elections became more partisan. Pundits at the time calculated that under the winner-take-all system of congressional elections, one party could control of the U.S. House of Representatives with as little as 40% of the nationwide vote.
The solution to this flaw in majority rule was obvious at the time. While assigning initial control over the manner of electing members of Congress to the various states, the Constitution empowers Congress to impose uniform rules.
In a populist reform enacted at the height of the Progressive Era, Congress passed the Apportionment Act of 1911 mandating single-member districts for congressional elections. As an added deterrent to partisan gerrymandering, the Act also provided that these districts be “composed of a contiguous and compact territory, and containing as nearly as practicable an equal number of inhabitants.” With this, gerrymandering subsided for a season.
Faced with the prospect of losing control of the U.S. House in 1930 with the onset of the Great Depression, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Reapportionment Act of 1929. In the hope of salvaging some Republican house seats, the new law repealed all of the anti-gerrymandering provisions imposed by the 1911 Act.
Multi-member districts returned in some states along with an increase in the number of less contiguous and compact single-member districts structured with a partisan edge. In 1967, a reform-minded Congress passed the Uniform Congressional District Act, which re-enacted the mandate for single-member house districts but without reinstating a requirement that they be contiguous or compact. By this time, the Supreme Court had applied the principle of equal population to legislative apportionment but the 1967 Act left open the door for gerrymandering those equally populated districts and advances in computer technology had transformed that process from a rough art to a precise science. Although the Supreme Court upheld partisan gerrymandering in 2019, under the Constitution, Congress can still limit it for House elections.
Without resorting to the near-impossible task of amending the constitution, opponents of gerrymandering could call on congressional candidates to pledge their support for legislative reform and hold them to account if elected. At the very least, like the 1911 Act, that law should require contiguous, compact single-member districts. Beyond this, it could mandate that states use non-partisan commissions to draw district lines, proscribe partisan gerrymandering, and give voters the right to enforce its provisions in court. Individual states have adopted such reforms in the past but rescinded them when other states gerrymander.
Only uniform, national rules can stop gerrymandering. Fortunately, the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact such rules but, having often been elected in gerrymandered districts, its members must be willing to act.
Edward Larson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning legal historian, and William Cooper is an attorney and author. They cohost the podcast How Our Constitution Works And Why It Doesn't.
This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.
The Evolution of Environmental Justice Policy in the United States
The Environmental Justice (EJ) movement in the United States emerged from civil rights struggles. The movement highlighted the disproportionate environmental burdens faced by communities of color and low-income populations. These concerns were later addressed on a larger scale by government agencies and executive policy.
An early milestone in the movement was the 1968 Houston lawsuit challenging the discriminatory siting of waste facilities in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Dr. Robert Bullard’s 1982 study documented the concentration of landfills and incinerators in Black communities. That same year, the Warren County, North Carolina protests against the dumping of PCB-contaminated waste in a predominantly Black community brought national attention to environmental racism. Subsequent studies, including the 1983 U.S. Government Accountability Office report and the 1987 Toxic Waste and Race report, confirmed that hazardous waste facilities were disproportionately located in these communities. The movement gained further institutional direction during the 1991 First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. The summit produced a foundational text and framework for the environmental justice movement: the Principles of Environmental Justice.
Environmental Justice became institutionalized within federal policy in the 1990s. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established an Environmental Equity Workgroup in 1990 and the Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) in 1993. A major policy milestone came in 1994, when President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 12898: “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” directing federal agencies to address disproportionate environmental harms in minority and low-income communities.
The federal EJ framework was expanded under President Joe Biden’s administration. Executive Order 14008: “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” in 2021 and Executive Order 14096: “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” in 2023 integrated EJ considerations across federal decision-making through a collaborative whole-of-government approach across government sectors.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14148: “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” Executive Order 14173: “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” and Executive Order 14151: “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” These executive orders rescinded several prior Executive Orders and directed federal agencies to eliminate programs tied to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including environmental justice-related offices and programs.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a press release in April 2025 the immediate closure of an EJ case handled by its Civil Rights Division. The Department stated the action aligns with executive directives to eliminate what the administration describes as “radical and wasteful government programs” related to DEI, including EJ. According to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the Department will no longer pursue EJ initiatives framed through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) approaches in part to prevent “expending taxpayer resources in accordance with the national interest, not arbitrary criteria.” This emphasized that the administration’s priority is to ensure government programs serve all Americans equally and that the taxpayer resources are allocated in line with what it defines as the national interest.
Enhances Merit-Based Opportunity in Government Contracting and Private Employment
The Trump administration asserts that the previously enacted EJ and DEI-related initiatives promoted discriminatory practices that conflicted with merit-based principles. According to the administration, certain EJ and DEI programs introduced preferential treatment based on race or other identity factors rather than individual qualifications. As part of the policy shift, the order rescinded affirmative action requirements in government contracting that have existed since 1965. The administration emphasizes that the changes are intended to restore equal treatment under the law and ensure that federal contracting and employment practices prioritize merit, fairness, and nondiscriminatory standards.
What Are the Implications and Critiques of Trump’s Executive Orders?
Public Health Impacts in Vulnerable Communities
Critics argue that the revocation ignores the long-documented history of environmental racism in the U.S. EJ scholars and advocates contend that the adverse health effects of environmental inequality will worsen, especially the effects of toxic and polluting industries on Indigenous, Black, and Latino communities’ health. Myrriah Gómez, Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico, criticized the move. Gomez argues that the administration’s actions demonstrate a failure to recognize the environmental dangers posed by toxic industries and instead prioritize economic interests over public health. Peggy Shepard, executive director and co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, noted that poor environmental conditions, including contaminated water and exposure to pollution, can exacerbate underlying health conditions. Shepard says this can lead to a “sicker population,” particularly in communities where polluting facilities are concentrated. Similarly, Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen issued a statement arguing that rolling back EJ initiatives could allow greater pollution in already overburdened communities, leading to increased rates of illnesses such as cancer, asthma, higher healthcare costs, and broader public health consequences.
Changes to EPA Enforcement Practices
Removing environmental justice considerations from federal enforcement practices affects how the EPA analyzes demographic and local environmental impacts. On March 16, 2025, the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) issued a directive stating that environmental justice considerations would no longer be criteria for EPA enforcement and compliance assurance work. The directive further restricts the use of race and socio-economic status as factors in compliance and enforcement decisions. The directive also indicated that EJScreen had been disabled and would not be used for any enforcement and compliance activity. EJScreen is the EPA’s primary EJ mapping platform. The tool provides critical data on local pollution burdens and demographic indicators. The tool allowed users to conduct EJ analysis for different pollutants and populations on federal, state, and city levels.
Disregards Long-standing Concerns from Environmental Justice Movement Advocates
Reversing prior EJ executive orders overlooks three decades of efforts to address environmental racism. Previous policies specifically guided federal agencies to address disproportionate environmental burdens faced by low-income communities and communities of color. Advocates contend that reversing these policies undermines progress made in confronting environmental racism and promoting equitable environmental protections. Shepard described the move as “turning the clock back on decades of work.” According to Shepard, removing these frameworks could have harmful consequences for disadvantaged communities, whose health and well-being are closely tied to policies that reduce exposure to pollution and address environmental inequities.
Loss of Tools to Identify Environmental Disparities
Critics argue that dismantling the DEI and EJ programs will likely enhance environmental inequalities and limit public tools to identify environmental inequalities. The administration also dismantled the Justice40 program, which aimed to allocate 40% of certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities. As part of Justice40, the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) developed the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CJEST) to identify disadvantaged communities using indicators related to climate risk, public health, transportation, energy burden, and other socio-economic factors. As a result of rescinding Executive Order 14008, the CJEST was also removed from operation and is no longer available on any federal government website.
What Does This Mean for the Future of Environmental Justice?
The reversal signals a fundamental shift in the federal government’s role in addressing environmental inequities. Environmental justice practices may be considered less often in federal decision-making. Without an executive mandate requiring agencies to prioritize disproportionately burdened communities, environmental justice considerations are likely to become fragmented, discretionary, or deprioritized across federal agencies.
Inside the Trump Administration’s 2025 Reversal of Environmental Justice Executive Orders: Analysis and Future Prospects was first published by ACE and was republished with permission.
Judith Wanjallah, Environmental Policy Fellow and climate change expert at ACE.
