The Post

Ohio U.

But with the system's own trustees estimating the trust funds that pay benefits will run out of money sometime around the year 2037, politicians are beginning to realize that they might be in for a bigger shock if they don't grab the third rail than if they do.

It will continue to be front and center, as evidenced by the presidential debate and vice presidential debate, said Robert Mahaffey, executive director of the National Committee to Save Social Security, a Washington-based advocacy group that opposes privatizing Social Security.

According to a Pew Research Center poll released in September, 24 percent of registered voters named Social Security and Medicare as the issue that was the most important thing for the next president to do, more than health care, education or the economy.

The two major party tickets have put forth very different proposals to reform Social Security.

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush proposed allowing workers to put a portion of their Social Security tax money into privately held accounts that they could choose how to invest.

Under his plan, a person could put 2 percent of their wages into an investment account. Bush maintains that these accounts would earn higher rates of return than Social Security and give people ownership over a portion of their retirement benefits. The accounts would be owned by the taxpayer, who could pass on any remaining assets in his or her will.

I want you to have your own asset you can call your own, that you can pass on from one generation to the next. I want to get a better rate of return for your own money than the 2 percent that the current Social Security trust gets today, Bush said in the Oct. 3 presidential debate.

Bush would not change benefits for current retirees or those who will retire in the near future. He has said there is enough money in the Social Security surplus to pay benefits in the near future, even with some future taxes diverted into private accounts.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Al Gore has disputed that assertion.

The governor (Bush) wants to divert one out of every $6 to the stock market, which means he would drain $1 trillion out of the Social Security trust fund in this generation over the next 10 years, and Social Security under that approach would go bankrupt within this generation, he said in the debate.

Aaron Dahnke, president of the Ohio University College Republicans, said privatizing a portion of Social Security will allow young workers to build more wealth for their retirement and aid the economy.

If some of the Social Security tax goes into investments, he said, It's actually earning interest, it's creating capital for our society, and it will help continue the good economy.

Gore wants to put the Social Security surplus in a lockbox, meaning it could not be borrowed by the government to pay for other programs. It would instead be used to pay the debt held by the public, reducing the amount of interest the government has to pay. The savings would be put into the Social Security trust funds, allowing them to pay out benefits, Gore says, until 2054.

Gore would also create Retirement Savings Plus accounts, in which the government would match the voluntary contributions of workers through a tax credit. The accounts would be managed by private financial firms but would be limited to relatively low-risk investments.

Lauren Dikis, president of the Ohio University College Democrats, said Gore's plan is the better one for people just beginning their working careers.

It worries me that people might choose to take their 2 percent and put it in the stock market and lose it if the stock market bottoms out, she said.

Bush says Gore's plan will not bring enough revenue into the Social Security system and force tax increases or cuts in benefits.

Green party candidate Ralph Nader calls Social Security a tremendous success story that has an extremely solid economic base.

Libertarian candidate Harry Browne calls it a fraudulent insurance scheme in which the government collects money from you for your retirement and immediately spends the money on something else.

Nader contends that the Social Security trustees' estimates are pessimistic and that if the economy grows at the rate it has in the past, the system will have enough money to pay full benefits for much longer than the trustees predict.

Browne compares Social Security to a Ponzi scheme and says lower benefits or higher taxes are inevitable to keep the system alive. He would end the current system and have the government buy annuities for anyone over the age of 50 who depends on Social Security for their retirement.