Mike Pence wants to talk about fixing Social Security. Will it doom him with 2024 voters?

New presidential candidate Mike Pence wasn't afraid to talk this week about the politically perilous choices that loom right around the corner for Social Security and Medicare.

But the former Vice President may face an uphill battle in bringing the rest of the field into that conversation.

In a kickoff speech Wednesday that largely focused on things like his faith and his role on Jan. 6, Pence also took significant time to tell Iowans that if the growing entitlement program costs are not addressed, it could “crush the future of the American economy and opportunities for our children.”

He has also declined to rule out politically unpopular options to solve the problem like raising the retirement age.

The blunt foray into the so-called "third rail of American politics" was notable because of how scarce a policy-focused discussion of the issue has been on the 2024 campaign trail so far.

Pence himself said as much this week. He named both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump as candidates who won't talk about the issue and whose “policy is insolvency.” He charges that both figures have calculated that a reform debate “is apparently less important than their short-term political fortunes.”

Biden and Trump may be right on the politics of the moment but experts warn that entitlement reform is an issue that will likely be inescapable during the next presidential term.

“As a statement of reality [Pence] is 100% correct,” said Mark Warshawsky, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration who is now at the American Enterprise Institute, while quickly noting that the politics are a little more complex.

He added in an interview Thursday that Pence’s challenge ahead is to “convince the public of the seriousness of the problem” and translate the issue from something abstract into “the way people live right now.”

The most recent government report on the programs found that Social Security only has the funds to continue paying out 100% of benefits through 2034. After that, benefits could be decreased by over 20%. Meanwhile, a key Medicare trust fund could run low on funds by the final year of the next presidential term, in 2028.

A race where most candidate say ‘we’re not going to mess with Social Security’

Pence begins his campaign mired near the bottom of the 2024 GOP field in spite of his near universal name recognition. Whether or not he can shift the conversation on this issue remains to be seen but experts say the issue will be on the president's desk in coming years no matter what.

Marc Goldwein is senior VP at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and noted in an interview Thursday that a key headline measure tracked by the trustees of Social Security and Medicare is whether the programs will be solvent over the coming decade.

He says it’s more likely than not that, for the first time, “the first trustee's report of the next president or the next administration is gonna fail that test with flying colors.”

He compared the situation to a car. Now, "the check engine light is on” he says, but the situation in coming years will be more akin to one where “the alarm that your car may not make it another 50 miles is on.”

But for the moment, the leading candidates appear more focused on using the issue as a political weapon.

Former President Trump does bring the issue up with some frequency but almost exclusively to attack fellow candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for ever being open to reform. “That’s a bad one,” the former president has taken to saying.

DeSantis, meanwhile, has distanced himself from his time in Congress when he did look at options to raise the retirement age and slow Social Security’s spending growth. He offers little on the topic these days beyond saying “we’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” as he told Fox News recently.

Another candidate who, like Pence, has weighed in on the challenges in some detail is former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley. She has directly discussed the need to change the retirement age for younger Americans.

Pence has been a bit more vague about what reforms he has in mind, but said in a CNN town hall Thursday that the reforms needed “could be a change in the age of eligibility, but it also could include letting younger Americans invest a portion of their payroll taxes in a mutual fund.”

He added in a Fox News interview Thursday that "we can replace these New Deal programs with a better deal for every American."

On the Democratic side, President Biden has focused more on increasing taxes to cover the shortfall and repeatedly criticized any Republican who discusses reform. He had a memorable moment in his State of the Union address when he baited Republicans to promise to take entitlement programs off the table and “stand up for seniors.”

In the weeks since, the White House has been happy to use the issue as a political weapon, with Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates recently charging that Republicans still plan to undermine the programs. Democrats have also critiqued Nikki Haley for her comments on entitlement reforms.

For budget hawks like Goldwein and Warshawsky, there may be little optimism that the issue will get the debate it deserves in the months ahead. But there is at least hope that the groundwork can be laid for real reforms in the coming years — given Pence's prominence and focus on the issue — even if he doesn't emerge victorious.

If Pence can get others in the field "to be a little more serious in their discussion of it, then that’s a sign of success,” Warshawsky says.

Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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