Social Security has quickly become a huge 2024 campaign talking point.

It’s coming up again and again, most often from the mouth of Donald Trump. The former president was in Iowa earlier this week where he went on an extended riff on the topic during a campaign rally nominally intended to be about education. As in his video messages and other campaign trail mentions, Trump promised to preserve the program and criticized other Republicans like Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for considering cuts.

And he’s not alone, his rivals are putting forth the outlines of their own plans and presenting a clear choice for voters while outside groups organize to place the issue top of mind once voting begins next year.

And experts note that this is far from a theoretical debate. A possible insolvency in 10 years could lead to benefit cuts if Washington doesn’t act and that conversation may need to occur during the next presidential administration.

“There's a lot of hard work that you need to do and so you can't do that two months before the exhaustion day, you’ve got to start years in advance” Mark Warshawsky, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration who is now at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an interview this week.

He added that a myriad of fiscal problems - from possible Medicare and Social Security insolvency to the overall deficit - will require Washington to come together in a “grander bargain” sooner rather than later and ”that may well be in the next administration, regardless of whether it's a Republican or a Democrat.”

A recent government trustees report 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%.

“10 years will come rather quickly and if we don't come up with a solution, then it will become very dire,” added finStream.tv Co-Founder Robert Powell in a Yahoo Finance live appearance this week.