Will New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie run for president? Only months ago, that would have been considered a silly question. Today, however, the former prohibitive frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2016 seems like a spent force.

Yahoo News political columnist Matt Bai recently sat down with the Garden State governor and confronted him with the fact that his stature among his fellow Republicans is greatly reduced compared to where it was just a few short years ago. “Chris Christie sat impassively at the round mahogany table in his family kitchen Monday as I recounted some of the data that suggested he was too damaged to run for president,” Bai’s dispatch began. “A recent CBS News poll found that 42 percent of Republican voters wouldn’t even consider voting for him — not after that whole bridge fiasco and a bunch of smaller eruptions having to do with lavish travel and awkward man-hugs. His approval rating in New Jersey has dipped below 30 percent.”

“The only way you’re going to perform well is if you believe in your heart that you’re ready to be president,” Christie replied. “And I didn’t. And so there was no way I would have won in 2012. I wouldn’t have, because I wasn’t ready.”

When Bai asked if Christie thinks he is ready for the White House today, the governor reportedly answered “yes” without hesitation.

And if the governor runs, he might do so as the candidate focused on an issue of near paramount importance: Entitlement reform. It is an issue without a champion in the set of Republican presidential candidates following Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) decision to focus on the country’s financial standing rather than his political career. If Christie does enter the race, he will do so by grabbing onto the third rail in American politics with both hands.

According to a Wall Street Journal preview of Christie’s forthcoming town hall in New Hampshire, the governor will propose reforms to a variety of entitlement programs and will back a hike in the retirement age from 67 to 69.

In the speech at New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, Mr. Christie is also expected to call for a gradual increase in the age when seniors qualify for Medicare to 67 years old by 2040, from its current average of 65. Seniors who could afford to pay more into the healthcare benefit would also be asked to do so.

Mr. Christie also plans to propose a plan to transfer Medicaid management and funding over to the states, a retooling of the health care program for the poor that was championed by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan in 2012.

Mr. Christie’s cuts to retirement benefits–potentially the most controversial parts of his plan–would apply a means test only to non-social security income. Kenneth Langone, co-founder of Home Depot and one of Mr. Christie’s biggest financial backers if he runs for president, has said he supports reducing Social Security benefits for seniors who don’t need the allowance.

“Washington is afraid to have an honest conversation about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with the people of our country,” Christie said. “I am not.”

Cutting entitlement spending is an issue that the left will demagogue, and even conservative seniors will balk at Christie’s message, but no one can ignore the numbers. In January, the Congressional Budget Office warned that America’s solvency is in peril. What’s more, securing a pathway to fiscal sustainability will be lost if the country does not act soon.

The deficit that CBO now estimates for 2015 is essentially the same as what the agency projected in August. CBO’s estimate of outlays this year has declined by $94 billion, or about 3 percent, from the August projection because of a number of developments, including higher-than-expected receipts from auctions of licenses to use the electromagnetic spectrum for commercial purposes. But CBO’s estimate of revenues has dropped almost as much—by $93 billion, also about 3 percent—mostly because of the enactment of legislation that retroactively extended a host of expired tax provisions through December 2014.

Over the 2015–2024 period, deficits are now projected to total about $175 billion less than CBO’s August estimate for that period. The current projections of revenues and outlays for those years are both lower than previously estimated, outlays a little more so.
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When CBO last issued long-term budget projections (in July 2014), it projected that, under current law, debt would exceed 100 percent of GDP 25 years from now and would continue on an upward trajectory thereafter—a trend that could not be sustained. (The 10-year projections presented here do not materially change that outlook.) Such large and growing federal debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing federal spending for interest payments; restraining economic growth in the long term; giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges; and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis. [Emphasis added]

Even with strong economic growth, a prospect that has been cast into doubt by a series of underwhelming labor and manufacturing reports, the debt crisis cannot be addressed without tackling entitlement and defense spending. Few on the right seem inclined to address the latter, and that will not change so long as the threats to American national security from state and non-state actors abroad continues to proliferate. So it must be the former that the GOP addresses. Christie will have done his party a great service if he refocuses the debate on that issue. It is a matter of singular and pressing importance.