The fate of Social Security now rests with the Senate Finance Committee, which opens hearings today on how
to fix the retirement system. The panel's first priority must be to restore the financial soundness of the current program,
upon which generations of Americans have relied.
The committee's second priority must be to nail shut the coffin lid on President Bush's proposal to overhaul
the program to stress private stock market accounts.
Americans have had ample time to consider this proposal, including a 60-day blitz by the President in front
of hand-picked audiences. The more workers hear about this plan, the less they like it. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll taken
April 1-2 showed only 33 percent supporting private accounts; 61 percent said they were a bad idea.
Bush's proposal, which would divert up to two-thirds of a worker's payroll taxes into private investment
accounts, is not technically on the Finance Committee's agenda. But the panel will either revive this drastic option or stop
it cold. Private accounts are favored by leading committee Republicans such as Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rick
Santorum of Pennsylvania.
As the hearings begin, it's important to keep in mind some facts. Bush's main problem is that his version
of private accounts doesn't really address Social Security's long-term deficit. Trimming the shortfall would still require
large, unspecified cuts in traditional benefits; citizens would have to hope that healthy stock market returns would make
up the difference.
Bush has insisted that Social Security is experiencing a meltdown requiring immediate drastic action. The
program has serious fiscal woes, but they are not immediate. Social Security will have enough money to pay full benefits until
2041 without Congress taking any action - unless the government took the radical step of deciding not to honor the trust fund's
Treasury bonds.
These hearings should provide the public with information that the White House hasn't divulged - for example,
how much the Bush plan would cut traditional retirement benefits. And how much money the federal government would need to
borrow, right now, to pay current retirees if payroll taxes were being diverted into private accounts and out of the pay-as-you-go
system now in place.
Finding a solution for Social Security - which means finding $4.1 trillion over the next 75 years - sounds
daunting. But the fix can be achieved with a relatively modest combination of tax increases and benefit cuts, such as the
ones the Editorial Board outlined last month in a five-point plan ("A plan, with Security," March 20)...
As their work begins, the Senate panel's 18 men and two women must focus on restoring the program's solvency.
For their part, Democrats must bring to the table a set of principles for saving the program, rather than simply a zeal for
scoring political points by killing the President's proposal.
