The Social Security Program has been successful. In 2000, 48 percent of Social Security recipients would have been poor without their social security check, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

As the baby boomer generation reaches retirement there will be more retirees than young people joining the workforce. In 1950, each person on Social Security was financed by the taxes of about 16 workers. Today, the ratio is about 1 recipient per every 3 workers. By 2050, it will be about 1 recipient for every 2 workers.

Social Security will be in trouble in the future if nothing is done. It can pay 100% of promised benefits until 2042. By 2018 or so, annual taxes won't equal annual benefits, according to Social Security data. Social Security will have to begin drawing on the Treasury bonds it bought with its surplus cash during its recent flush times. Drawing on these funds, incoming revenues will be enough to pay more than 70% of benefits for decades to come.

By law, all income to the trust funds not immediately needed to pay expenses, is invested in bonds guaranteed by the U.S. government. The bonds earn interest-in 2002 the rate of return earned by the trust funds averaged 6.4%.

Social Security is not only a retirement program. It also pays benefits to disabled workers and their dependents; spouses and children of retired workers; and the survivors of deceased workers.

Social Security is financed by a 12.4 percent payroll tax levied on the first $90,000 of annual wages. Wages over $90,000 are not subject to social security.

Private retirement accounts will not make Social Security more secure. In the short run, private accounts would make Social Security's cash flow problem worse. Social Security depends on the contributions of younger workers to pay today's retirees; if some of that money were held back for individual private accounts, the government would somehow have to make up the difference. Most likely, that would mean more borrowing - 1 trillion or more over the next 10 years.

Investment choices for private accounts would likely be very limited. They may or may not produce more income for workers eligible for this program. Workers would be paying less in payroll taxes into the traditional system, but they would get correspondingly smaller benefits when they retire.

The stock market goes down as well as up. The decline in the stock market a few years ago meant many workers who thought they had a financially secure retirement plan had to cut their budgets or even go back to work to make ends meet.

Under the White House plan, participants would not be allowed preretirement access to their money - nor would they be permitted to make loans to themselves through the accounts, or borrow against them. There would be at least one important restriction on how the money can be used after participants reach retirement, as well. According to the White House, individuals would not be permitted to withdraw money from their personal account if it would plunge them below the poverty line.

If a worker's payment from traditional Social Security was not by itself large enough to keep them out of poverty, the government would require them to use some portion of their personal account money to buy an annuity - an investment with a fixed monthly payout for life. You can't pass most annuities along to your heirs, so to some extent this would reduce the amount of freedom that lower-income workers would have in terms of personal account distribution.

The earlier that Congress grapples with this problem, the smaller the changes will need to be. An immediate increase in the payroll tax of about 1.5 percentage points could wipe out the 75-year problem, according to Social Security's own trustees. That would take the tax from today's 12.4 percent to 13.9 percent or the $90,000 annual cap on the amount of income subject to Social Security levies could be raised.

Some moral considerations -

Social security responds to the call in the Sacred Writings to care for those in need – with special attention to the disabled, elderly, and children. Any changes in the tax code should be weighed in favor of the poor. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matt 25:40) “...the poor have the single most urgent economic claim on the conscience of the nation.” (Economic Justice For All)

Women and minorities would be disproportionately affected by privatization. Many more members of these groups have lower incomes and are less likely to have employer sponsored retirement and rely more on Social Security for retirement income.

A Social Security program achieves the goals of solidarity. All of us need to care for each other, be willing to face problems and risks together. It was designed as a pension fund that protects everyone. The concept of an “ownership society” focuses on the individual and does not see the government as a vehicle for the common good.

The present system favors the wealthiest who only pay into the system for the first $90,000 they earn. Raising the ceiling on payment on payroll taxes to $150,000 or more would solve the problem.

Sources; NETWORK, Christian Science Monitor, Cincinnati Enquirer, USCCB, National Catholic Reporter