Protect Social Security

The best reason to hurry reform of Social Security is not that the system is near demise, as the president’s commission on the retirement insurance concludes, but that the grandstanding of the 2002 elections is nearly at hand, to be followed shortly by the interminable opportunism of the 2004 presidential race. Unfortunately, the Commission to Strengthen Social Security has made agreement more difficult, and its direction will be of little help to most in Maine.

It has done so, as a number of critics have pointed out, by stating in an interim report that no real assets exist in the Social Security trust fund, ignoring the $1.2 trillion in surpluses that have been building up since 1983 because the money has been used to buy government bonds rather than invested elsewhere. The leads the commission to conclude that 2016 is the default date for the program, rather than 2038 which those who believe the trust fund means something hold as the year of reckoning. The system is expected to run short of money because the ratio of workers to beneficiaries is falling and will soon work out to two workers for every one beneficiary.

But the debate over the trust fund is just one result of the real fight, which is over whether private accounts are essential to reform. The president’s commission began its work certain that they are, and then shaped its report to prove themselves right. And for some people, investing correctly in the stock market, might indeed find themselves with more wealth than they would have under the current retirement system.

The system, however, was not designed to generate wealth but to assure a guaranteed level of income to protect against poverty in old age. That should give Maine, which has a higher percentage of seniors than the national average and a higher percentage of poor seniors, reason to be wary of the commission. Social Security benefits are progressive: the poor receive a higher percentage, compared with their incomes, than the wealthy. And they receive it for the rest of their lives, even if the amount they’ve contributed, plus interest, has run out. With private accounts, the percent invested would be based on lower salaries and would not be assured.

The president is right to get moving on Social Security reform: small changes now could keep the system healthy for many decades into the future. And he is further right to protect those already retired or near retirement age. But his commission should drop the commitment to private accounts and instead focus on protecting what has been a remarkably successful program. Retirees don’t need to get rich through Social Security, they need to be assured that it will be there for them far into the future.