A year ago tomorrow Kenneth S. Apfel, commissioner of Social Security, told the National Press Club that strengthening the retirement system for millions of Americans was the most important thing Congress and the White House could do and that now was the best time imaginable to do it. Naturally, nothing happened.

Naturally, because fixing Social Security requires caution and small changes rather than headline-grabbing overhauls and because Social Security is a great campaign issue for next year. Fix it, and the issue disappears.

With inaction in Congress and insincerity in the White House, the problem of an increasing number of retirees and a relative decreasing number of workers to support the system grows worse. According to current projections, by 2013 benefit costs will exceed payroll revenues; by 2034, the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted, if no action is taken. In response to this, both parties put several possibilities on the table for discussion: Could tax revenues cover the gap? Should the retirement age be increased? Should workers be allowed to invest some of their Social Security Savings or should the government invest part of it?

Whatever the proposed adjustment, all sides agreed that the sooner action was taken, the less dramatic and risky the action would need to be. With that in mind, compromise seemed assured. Instead, Republicans become more concerned with tax cuts and the Clinton administration proposed government investments it knew would never fly in Congress. Without a chance of an agreement during the 2000 election season — and with the exception of Steve Forbes, none of the presidential aspirants seem that interested in the subject anyway — repairs to Social Security may now be at least two years off.

In his speech to the National Press Club, Mr. Apfel made the need to act now clear: “Our budget surpluses are due almost entirely to Social Security for the next few years,” he said, “but large non-Social Security surpluses are projected for many years into the future. … If those surpluses are drained away, we will be digging ourselves a much deeper hole to resolve this issue. And if we squander this moment in time without strengthening Social Security, I fear for the sustainability of those surpluses.”

Congress and President Clinton have started digging a hole for the American people, and it could become a long climb out.