The recent analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget regarding the 2025 Medicare Trustees’ Report highlights the looming challenges with Medicare and Social Security, but it only scratches the surface of the deeper fiscal issues our country faces. To understand the full financial reality, we must go beyond trust fund “solvency” and examine the actual commitments the federal government has made—and continues to make—without fully accounting for them. As the Congressional Budget Office has noted:

“In the public debate, ‘solvency’ means keeping the trust funds from exhausting their balances and ensuring the ability of the funds to finance promised benefits. Defined that way, however, trust fund solvency is not a meaningful measure of the government’s ability to meet its future obligations.”

In other words, solvency in this context is more of a political or legal benchmark than an actual measure of financial health.

Multiple media outlets are reporting President Donald J. Trump has announced publicly the conflict between Israel and Iran will be declared over by midnight Wednesday. Israel and Iran have agreed to a cease-fire, declaring the beginning of an end to what President Trump referred to as “the 12-Day War.”

“It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE … for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform just after 6 p.m. EDT.

The president wrote that both sides would wind down their final military operations within six hours and begin what he expected to be a “peaceful and respectful” cease-fire on both sides. After 24 hours, the conflict will be declared over, Trump said.

“Iran has officially responded to our obliteration of their nuclear facilities with a very weak response, which we expected, and have very effectively countered. There have been 14 missiles fired — 13 were knocked down, and 1 was “set free,” because it was headed in a nonthreatening direction.