As Americans, we find ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented campaign by the president and his friends in big business to convince us that the Social Security system is irretrievably broken, busted, bankrupt.

Just how bad is this “crisis”? Well, actually not that bad compared to Medicare, Medicaid, the national debt, the war, the value of the dollar and healthcare.

The Social Security trustees say the system will experience its first shortfall in 2018 and that by 2042 it will be able to cover only 73 percent of promised benefits. However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) adds 10 years to those projections and believes that nearly half a century from now (2052) the system still will have enough reserves to pay full benefits and will be able to cover 80 percent of benefits after that.

The CBO projects that the trust fund could be solvent into the 22nd century (with no change in benefits) with additional revenue of less than 3 percent of federal spending. That’s less than we currently are spending in Iraq and a quarter of the annual impact of Bush’s tax cuts.

Does something need to be done to secure the financial future of Social Security? Yes. Social Security does face problems down the road, but the Bush plan for private accounts would only make them worse by diverting trillions of dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund.

“We reject private accounts and drastic cuts in benefits for younger workers as the only solution to the long-term funding needs of Social Security,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. “President Bush’s approach is the first step toward the eventual elimination of the Social Security system.”

—D.K.