Social Security, Medicare will fail without reform

I have often wondered why policymakers in Washington repeatedly fail to seriously address problems with our Social Security and Medicare programs, despite repeated warnings by economists and the programs' administrators that the programs will begin spending more than they take in by the end of the decade.

Then I wrote a column advocating entitlement reform. Now I get it.

Given the many strongly worded responses I received, I have a better understanding, at least on some very small scale, what politicians are facing when they so much as whisper the words "Social Security" and "Medicare" in the same breath as the word "reform."

Indeed, the topic truly is the third rail of Americans politics.

I've learned how President Donald Trump's promise to make "no changes" to Social Security and Medicare was going to be a problem, given the programs' trajectories.