President Bush wants us to think that the sky is falling.

Social Security is one of the most successful government programs in our history, but he would have us believe it’s a program in crisis.

In fact, it’s currently taking in more money than it’s paying out, and that will continue to be true until 2018. At that time it will begin drawing on the trust fund it’s now accumulating – but it will still be able to pay full benefits until 2042.

So, if there’s a crisis on the horizon for Social Security, it’s at least 37 years away. These are numbers that the Social Security Administration itself was presenting until recently when the White House began pressuring them to put out the crisis message.

Whatever problems Social Security is facing can be fixed by raising the upper limit on income-level that’s taxed – currently about $85,000 – which would only affect people who could afford to pay more.

Look at who would be guaranteed to benefit from private accounts that are the core of Bush’s “fix”: Wall Street brokerage houses – some of his largest financial supporters; they would get a windfall of billions of dollars in fees for managing our personal retirement accounts.

The efficiency of the system, currently above 95 percent, would drop to about 70 percent – a figure from the experience of England and Argentina who have both switched to this system. That 25 percent difference would go to brokers and fund managers.

There’s at least one more “bad” number in Bush’s scheme and it’s far bigger than any real fix of the current system would cost: $2 trillion up front to fund the changeover and another $5 trillion over the next 10 years! Is that something we can afford to add to an already staggering federal deficit?

The sky is not falling and Social Security is not about to go broke.

Tom Prescott

Belfast