Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) call for Republicans to act on Social Security reform if they keep control of Congress in 2027 is getting pushback from Senate Republicans who warn it’s a bad political message heading into November.

Yet, a trustees’ report that the popular retirement program will become insolvent sooner than expected has lit a fire under lawmakers in both parties to call for reforms such as raising the cap on payroll taxes, “means testing” beneficiaries, raising the retirement age, and creating personal accounts to invest in the stock markets.

The Social Security trustees’ report warned that beneficiaries would see their monthly checks cut by 22 percent in 2032.

Fiscal conservatives are applauding Johnson’s bold talk.

“I’m sending a letter to our leadership. … I’m sending them an official letter saying we should set up a bicameral, bipartisan [committee] — equal number of Republicans, equal number of Democrats — and the sole goal is to discuss how to make Social Security and Medicare solvent,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he’s going to hold the Speaker to his promise to address Social Security’s future fiscal trajectory if Republicans keep control of Congress.

“We were promised … if we retain the majority, we’re definitely going to tackle this. I’ll try and hold them to this,” he said.

The Wisconsin Republican said he wants to “plus up” Social Security benefits by slashing federal spending more generally to create more fiscal space to fund Social Security without adding to the deficit.   

But some Republicans are wary of Johnson’s call for action because they remember the brutal political lesson from 20 years ago when former President George W. Bush tried to reform Social Security without Democratic buy-in and it blew up in Republicans’ faces. 

“That sounds like wealthy people who want to have all of their tax breaks and loopholes and their carried interest deductions and so forth but they want working people who paid into all of those programs for years to take less,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said when asked about the Speaker’s statements about the need to tackle big mandatory spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Hawley says he gets nervous when policymakers talk about the need to “address” or “reform” Social Security.

“Addressed? Reformed? That’s usually code for ‘cut.’ I’m not in favor of that,” he said.

The Speaker warned in a radio interview that Congress needs to tackle the ballooning cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which account for three-quarters of federal spending.

“The reason we’re in trouble is because over 74 percent of federal spending is on autopilot — mandatory spending, that is your entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and things like Social Security — they have to be adjusted and fixed,” Johnson said on the “Moon Griffon Show.”

“We have a plan to do that next year, and it’s critical, because we’re at $40 trillion-plus in debt. At some point you get into a hole so deep you can’t climb out of it, so desperate times call for desperate measures,” he warned.

Some Senate Republicans think that kind of talk before a midterm election when GOP candidates are facing big headwinds in November is politically tone deaf.

Asked about Johnson’s comments that Social Security needs to be addressed, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) merely said the Speaker is “entitled to his opinion.”

“I think Mike is my friend, and he’s entitled to his opinion,” Kennedy said tersely.

A Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on Senate GOP reaction to proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age, trim benefits or raise payroll taxes, said colleagues don’t want to “walk the plank” by embracing calls for reform.

The senator cited the huge political blowback to the Bush administration in 2005 when it attempted to partially privatize Social Security.

“It has to be bipartisan,” said the GOP senator, who added that “all the Republicans” are “not going to walk the plank on Social Security reform all by themselves.”

“In 2004, when we started talking about supplementing Social Security accounts by diverting money to private accounts under Bush, we got creamed on that,” the senator said.

Republicans suffered big losses in both chambers of Congress in the 2006 midterm election after Bush handily won reelection and Republicans picked up Senate and House seats in the 2004 presidential election.

President Trump pledged in the 2024 presidential campaign that he wouldn’t do anything to reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits.

“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare. … We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them,” he said.

Yet there’s growing anxiety on Capitol Hill that lack of action will lead to a Social Security funding crisis in a few years.

“At some point in time, those lines are going to cross,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said.

But Murkowski expressed skepticism about passing legislation in the next Congress to shore up Social Security given its reputation as the so-called Third Rail of politics. Just like the electrified third rail in the subway, merely touching it poses a deadly risk.

“In terms of who’s going to take that up or if will it be taken up after the midterms, I have no idea,” Murkowski. “It’s going to be hard.”

“These are the things that nobody wants to touch because they’re so big. The only way they happen is if they are a bipartisan effort from the get-go,” she said.

Murkowski lamented Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) recent defeat in the Louisiana Senate Republican primary because he was the leading advocate of putting together a bipartisan working group to address Social Security’s faltering finances.

Four senior senators — two Democrats and two Republicans — issued a statement last week calling on Congress to tackle the “hard” debate over how to reform Social Security after the trustees’ warned the program will face a significant shortfall at the end of 2032.

“It’s clear now that Congress shouldn’t delay any longer. Several of us have been coming together to talk about how we can strengthen Social Security for current and future generations of retirees. We say to our colleagues: join us in doing what we were elected to do — legislate on hard issues and protect this lifeline program for our kids and grandkids,” Cassidy and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in a joint statement.

One problem, however, is that three of those four lawmakers won’t be in Congress next year. Cassidy lost his reelection race, and Durbin and Tillis have announced their retirements at the end of the term.

Kaine acknowledged the odds of doing anything about Social Security in the next Congress are low.

“The Vegas odds probably are not great because the history is we tackle it when we absolutely have to, right when we’re up against a potential benefits cut,” he said.

Kaine said the goal is to start the discussion now so that there are more ideas on the table when the projected 2032 insolvency date is even closer.

“One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed working with Cassidy is getting more ideas into the bloodstream. If we can do it before we actually have to, it will be easier to do it,” he said.

Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said he is already holding meetings with constituents to float various proposals for extending Social Security’s fiscal health, such as raising the retirement age.

“I’ve actually held town halls in Utah. We had one with our youth, with our business class, with our seniors and we’ve presented the different levers that you could change. We’re trying to get a sense of what levers my constituents could support,” he said. “We do need to be talking about this. It’s a huge disservice to say we’re not going to touch Social Security.”

“This report is evidence that if we don’t touch Social Security, it’s far worse,” he said.