"Mr. Gore and spinners such as the Secretary of the Treasury and Ed Asner have been running around suggesting that Mr. Bush cannot both fund private retirement accounts for workers and give current retirees their benefits. The pitch is that the $1 trillion over 10 years necessary to fund private retirement accounts would have to come out of beneits being paid to current retirees.

This is nonsense. Right now, today, taxation is pouring more money into the Social Security system (WebEditor: Trust Fund) than is needed to cover all promised benefits to current retirees. Indeed, Social Security has been generating a surplus since 1984 and will continue to have a surplus until 2025. When Mr. Bush's plan for private accounts is factored in, there will be sufficient resources to cover current retirees and those nearing retirement until 2023. Under the Bush Plan, part of those surpluses ($1 trillion) would be used to fund private accounts, and the rest ($2.8 trillion) would be used to fund promised benefits.

But we want to make a larger point. Any person who takes the time to read through the candidates' proposals would realize that while the Bush campaign has been actually thinking through the problem of Social Security reform, the Gore campaign has - we imagine - been frolicking on the Planet Debby. In fact, Mr. Bush deals with the unpleasant reality that Social Security, untouched, is underfunded if it is to provide promised benefits for all future retirees. By contrast, Mr. Gore offers a lot of hot air about lock boxes.

This underfunding is being driven by demographic changes. When the boomers begin to retire in 2010 (and thus become retirees), there will be, increasingly, fewer workers to support more retirees, who will also be living longer and drawing benefits for a longer period. Put another way, there will be fewer workers and thus less payroll-tax revenue to support more retirees who require who require greater expenditures.

Right now, today, the Social Security surplus is flowing into the Treasury, which then sends it back out to pay down the national debt. In return, the Treasury gives Social Security IOUs, or special-issue Treasury securities, for both the cash money and the interest that money would have earned if it were actually in a trust fund. (WebEditor: It actually is in the Social Security Trust Fund, which is now being raided by Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers to buy out wealthy bond-holders of the national debt.)

The underfunding problem starts in 2015 when the Social Security system won't be generating enough revenue through the payroll tax to cover promised benefits. The shortfall will than have to be covered by Social Security's (Trust Fund) interest income on its IOUs. In 2025, however, the shortfall will have grown so that payroll taxes plus interest income is insufficient. The shortfall will then have to be covered by redeeming the IOUs themselves. In 2037, when all the IOUs will have been redeemed, the shortfall will be really hanging in the wind." (WebEditor: That is, in the pockets of the wealthy bond-holders, who will have escaped all risk by redemptions allowing re-investment at rates of 10-20% return-on-investment, compared to interest rates of 2% allowed on IOUs in the Social Security Trust Fund).

WebEditor: Rather than continuing with this Editorial, which then focuses on the two candidates, and their battle of projected surpluses, based on raiding the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, and denying realistic interest rates to the remaining balances in the on-going Trust Funds, it is perhaps more important to state realistically and briefly how honesty and prosperity can be restored to the Trust Funds and to the nation:

1. Return to the two Trust Funds all moneys taken from them by the Treasury Department since 1984 for purposes other than Social Security and Medicare.

2. Return to them realistic interest earnings (5-6%) that would have been earned on such balances since 1984.

3. Increase the present interest rates on IOUs to the two Trust Funds from the present 2% to realistic levels, (currently 5-6%), adjusted annually for changes in such interest rates.

4. Cease all further withdrawals of money from the two Trust Funds by the Treasury Department for purposes other than Social Security and Medicare.

5. Consider the careful and judicious investment of some of the two Trust Fund moneys into the American economy for the benefit of all of our citizens.