This excerpt originally appeared in NBC Politics on April 23, 2012.

Jason Fichtner, a senior research fellow at the free-market oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said the report showed that Social Security will be facing an increasing mismatch between taxes being paid in and benefits being paid out.

“The longer we wait, the higher the tax rate is going to have to be to make up the difference… This is a big shortfall and it's just going to get larger with each passing year if we don’t do something to reform Social Security,” he said.