Debt by Dysfunction

In seven years, the Social Security Trust Fund will be empty. Not might be. Will be. It's written into federal law.

When that happens, 70 million Americans will see their benefits cut by 24 percent-automatically, immediately, and without Congressional action required. This isn't a prediction. It's statutory math, documented in Congressional Budget Office projections hiding in plain sight.

Debt by Dysfunction is the first comprehensive analysis of how three converging crises-entitlement insolvency, interest cost explosion, and confidence erosion-will reshape American life between now and 2040.

Stanford-trained economist Karina Vunnam synthesizes more than 200 citations from official government sources to document:

• Why the required $9.0 trillion fix is mathematically feasible but politically impossible
• How interest payments already exceed defense spending-and will soon exceed all discretionary spending combined
• Why every actor with knowledge of this crisis faces structural incentives to stay silent
• How the municipal cascade will sort America into tiers of functional and failed jurisdictions
• What historical precedent reveals about how democracies navigate fiscal stress

This is not another debt doom prophecy. It is a statutory audit of what happens when rational individual decisions create collective catastrophe-what the author terms rational dysfunction.

The 1983 Social Security reform proved comprehensive bipartisan action is possible. That crisis was half this magnitude, occurred during lower political polarization, and used policy tools that have since been exhausted. Today's political system rejected the Simpson-Bowles plan 382 to 38. It will not pass reforms three times larger.

The deadline is real. The math is public. The preparation is yours.

Based on the author's SSRN working paper, with an interactive companion site featuring timelines, data visualizations, and additional resources at debtbydysfunction.com.