The entire point of a representative republic is to avoid short term swings of majority rule.
Long term, in the case of social security and government spending, it's the people -- the electorate -- by majority who must want something. There's no protection in the constitution against that.
To depend on politician's over the long haul to protect you from government spending when the electorate wants big government spending is -- a statist idea.
Ben Franklin said we had a republic "if you can keep it." He wasn't talking about the politicians. He was talking about the electorate and it's the electorate that is to blame.
That is why I think voting strictly along the lines of Democrat and Republican is an exercise in futility. Under the current one-party system, it's no longer a question of whether or not government is going to grow; it's a question of who will be in charge of that growth.
Nothing will change unless the people can be convinced otherwise. Hopefully, they can be convinced to once again hold their elected representatives accountable. The only alternative is to admit that there is no going back--that the Constitution is indeed a dead letter and that our representative republic no longer exists--and prepare for another revolution. Frankly, I don't think even the most conservative among us is ready for that.