Jim McTague‘s latest “D.C. Current” column in Barron’s focuses on the return of Social Security reform to the political agenda.

The 2011 sequestration law, which requires $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts on the discretionary side of the federal budget over nine years to reduce the federal deficit, kicks in again on Oct. 1, following a two-year hiatus agreed to in the bipartisan 2013 budget deal. The budget cuts don’t affect programs like Social Security, whose payments are tied, without congressional review, to the consumer-price index—a big reason why the federal government’s financial health looks so dismal 25 years out. The sequestration cuts, however, will automatically reduce the Defense Department budget, despite increasing threats from the Middle East and Russia, and eat into dozens and dozens of federal programs like those that provide funding for low-cost housing, education, job training, veterans, and Medicare reimbursements for physicians. In short, federal handouts cherished by both political parties will be cut to the bone. What’s to be done? In theory, Social Security reform would significantly trim Uncle Sam’s long-term deficit to a level that no longer would require sequestration. Boiling it down to simple terms, Republican fund-raiser Rick Hohlt says: “If they can’t do entitlement reform, then they can’t do other things.”

FOLLOWING REFORM, MONEY would be available for the GOP to hand out to the generals, and to corporations (in the form of tax breaks). Democrats no doubt would carve out funding for their pet infrastructure and social programs. Happy days would be here again—unless you yearn for minimal federal government. But one wonders if Congress could hash out Social Security reform without roiling the world’s skittish debt markets. We’ll find out shortly. The GOP’s Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, plans to have hearings, I’m told.

President Obama, a lame duck who refuses to limp, remains crucial to the process. He could give reform a mighty boost if he speaks about it positively in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. Obama, who discussed reform in his 2012 and 2013 speeches, barely mentioned it in 2014, a midterm election year.