Is There Really A Crisis?

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The same can be said for its degree of difficulty. TIME's latest poll gives some indication of what Bush faces: 49% of respondents said they disapprove of the President's handling of Social Security, while only 40% said they approve. And that's before Bush has even put forward the details of his plan. Nonetheless, the President has begun his assault--personally and through a cadre of emissaries from Vice President Dick Cheney to Treasury Secretary John Snow--labeling Social Security a "crisis" that must be fixed. "First step," Bush told TIME last month, "is to make sure everybody understands we have a problem." The President last week surrounded himself with citizens ranging from children to an 80-year-old and warned that the Social Security system will be "flat bust, bankrupt" by the time workers in their 20s retire. As early as 2018, Bush said, "you're either going to have to raise the taxes of people or reduce the benefits." At another appearance intended to promote federal standards for testing high school students, Bush went off script to warn a group of teenagers, "The system will be bankrupt by the year 2040."

That sounds pretty scary--except that it's not true. What will actually happen in 2018, according to the Social Security trustees who oversee the program, is that the money paid out in benefits will begin to exceed the amount collected in taxes. And since Social Security will run a surplus until then (and has been running one for some time), it has billions available that it can tap to fill the gap. Even under conservative estimates, the system as it stands will have enough money to pay all its promised benefits until 2042 and most of its obligations for decades after.

What's more, even if you take the President at his word--that a crisis and bankruptcy are fast approaching--the introduction of private accounts does nothing to slow that process. On the contrary, it makes things worse, by diverting payroll taxes from current retiree benefits and bringing the end of surpluses that much closer. Given all that, what is the President after?

As Moore learned when he visited Austin, Bush's fascination with Social Security began before he got to Washington. As Governor, his advisers say, he was struck by the experiences of local governments in places like Galveston County that had allowed their employees to opt out of government retirement plans and invest the proceeds in private funds--yielding legends of courthouse janitors retiring with $750,000 nest eggs. As Bush planned his first presidential campaign, he brought in experts to brief him on how privatization had worked in places like Chile, and even Sweden--surely one of the rare instances of a Republican taking the lead from a country known for a near socialist welfare system.