One thing I’ve learned by getting old is that dates that sound very far-off will eventually arrive, and the bills payable on those dates will come due. The long-foretold tipping point of Social Security and Medicare into insolvency seemed like science fiction when I first tried to imagine the 2030s, but a new examination of the numbers confirms that the time is almost here.

According to the latest report from the Social Security trustees, absent action by Congress, the funding shortfall will force deep cuts in retirement and health insurance benefits by 2033, which is no more time than it takes to turn a baby into a third-grader. The blink of an eye, in other words, as any parent of a third-grader can attest.

The long fuse on an inevitable bomb — the underfunded retirement of the baby boom generation — has finally burned down. The demographic studies and actuarial charts were correct, and the explosion is nigh. The question is what to do about it, and, more perplexing, who will do it.

There’s nothing complicated about the options. One is to raise more revenue, either by hiking the 7.65 percent payroll tax (known as FICA, for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act) that supports the programs, or by increasing the amount of income subject to the tax.

The first of these options is regressive, striking hardest at those who earn the least.

The second would add to the burden of high-salary workers who already shoulder the biggest tax load, and, in any event, there is already a Medicare surtax on earned income above a certain level ($200,000 for single taxpayers).

Another choice is to further raise the age of eligibility for benefits, which tends to help people who enjoy good health and desk jobs over those in poor health or in physically demanding work.

A third solution is to increase the number of workers paying into the system.

But this cuts against the current political mood, because the quickest and surest way of growing the workforce is through easy immigration. And it might be flying in the face of technology, because many experts predict that in the future workforce, artificial intelligence will destroy more jobs than it creates.

Given those imperfect options, the government is choosing its favorite solution: ignoring reality.

Like the toddler who closes his eyes to try to make himself invisible, Congress and the president are grinding away at a “big beautiful bill” that ignores the problem, and in fact makes it worse. By increasing the federal deficit despite unprecedented peacetime debt, the legislation significantly deepens the crater that lies just ahead of us.

Republicans are to blame for the legislation, but the problem is bipartisan. One reason the trustees gave for accelerating their doomsday calculation was the Biden-era law that enhanced Social Security benefits paid to second-career earners who already retired from first jobs covered by certain public pension plans. Red or blue, they all share a yellow streak of cowardice when it comes to paying for the promises they make.

But you might say elections make cowards of us all, because our representatives are only doing what we voters demand. While candidates debated intensely last year about the alleged eating of pets in Ohio, everyone sang from the same hymnal when pledging to keep hands off Social Security. Why? Because they knew what moved the needle with their voters — and fiscal discipline ain’t it.

One cannot look at Washington and conclude that the unpleasant decision to pay the retirement piper will be made by elected leaders of either party if left to their own cringing devices. Not by the Democrats who demagogue the Social Security issue, nor by the Republicans who cower at the political “third rail.” The pitiless and nonpartisan analysts at the three leading bond-rating agencies have taken exactly this look at the capital’s reckless budgeting, and all three have downgraded America’s public credit.

Though it offends the idea of representative democracy, the way forward is an appointed commission charged with developing two or three paths to solvency for Social Security and Medicare. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) should take the lead in creating the panel with the blessing of President Donald Trump. The commission’s recommendations should be published by the beginning of 2028 to be debated in that year’s election by politicians of a new generation. (One hopes.)

The crisis will then be at hand, and the moment will test the truth of Abba Eban’s clear-eyed but guardedly hopeful rule of statesmanship. “Men and nations do act wisely,” the Israeli diplomat often said, “when they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

David Von Drehle is a deputy opinion editor for The Post and writes a weekly column.