This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE 2/10/05

It sounds like a great deal of confusion.
I’m referring to the social security issue which has all the pundits in a quandry as to what to do about it.
President George Bush outlined one plan in his Stat e of the Union speech, and then hit the campaign trail to push his idea of giving those younger than 55 the option of taking a portion of the money now going into social security on their behalf....investing it in as yet to be declared list of options. His view is that it gives those under 55 an opportunity to accumulate more money than they would had those funds been left as social security additions. The other feature, which hepoints out, is that the individual opting this choice would own the money....that is, it would be a part of that individuals retirement funds....and would not disappear when that individual dies...but be a permanent part of his or her estate.
Now...on the face of it that appears to be a viable option.
However, opposition is strong, declaring such actions as purely a gamble, and one that would endanger the program of social security in the long run.
The President has also indicated he is open to all options, realizing that the final action, if any, will have to be by Congress.
What is the Democratic option? Well, for one, they advocate no change and say that the danger to social security has been overblown.
They lambaste the President’s plan but thus far have offered little planning of their own. One of their spokesmen....Teddy Kennedy, says that if Congress rolls back the tax cut which the Republicans recently enacted it would solve the social security problem for the future.
Somehow....those tax cuts appear to be the biggest problem for the Democrats. They continue to stress that the one percent of the taxpayers who make $300,000 or more should not have the tax cut.
As far as I understand it....the facts are these. By the year 2018 the revenue coming into social security will barely meet the outgo, and from that point on...social security will have to cash in government bonds that have replaced surpluses of the past years. That will mean a tremendous financial burden on the federal government since from that point on it may require billions...some say even trillions of those bonds to be cashed in...being redeemed out of federal general funds and thus causing chaos in federal budgeting.
Most agree that there is a problem, but what to do about it has become the question.
It will eventually become the largest problem of the current session of Congress.
First will come the reportedly tighter federal budget presented by the President. In the past, legislators have poured in all their pet projects and the budget has ballooned out of sight. This will be the first of the problems they tackle.
Second will come the battle over making the current tax cuts permanent. That will be a purely partisan battle.
Other issues crowding into the picture will include limiting medical malpractice lawsuits, the question of illegal immigration and the simplifying of the federal tax codes not to mention approval of judicial candidates.
Some of these issues will get done, but only after bruising battles.
I feel that privatizing of some social security funds will need a great deal more of explanation before it ever finds its way to the floor of the Congress.
No...I don’t have an answer for it....if I did I’d be in Congress promoting it.
It looks like a long and bitter struggle ahead for the current Congress.

This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.