COLUMBIA -- "We're all on the Titanic, and the ship of Social Security is going down in 10 to 20 years," says Lea Abdnor, national president of a grassroots Social Security reform group. "The more I find out about Social Security, the angrier I get. There's a myth of a Social Security trust fund, and it simply doesn't exist. I very much resent Uncle Sam saying that I'm too ignorant to handle my own money."

Former state representative David Owens of St. George is the southeast regional director of the national grassroots effort, "For Our Grandchildren, which is growing around the country as members furiously work against the clock to overhaul Social Security before the program runs out of money in 2018. South Carolina is a major site in the "For Our Grandchildren" battle plan, and it is hoped that popular support here can pressure next year's presidential candidates to include the program in their campaigns.

"Social Security as it is now is unfounded, unfair and unsustainable," Abdnor said a recent regional meeting in Columbia. She said 40 percent of America's population believe that the money they pay into Social Security goes into a personal account for their own retirement. Abdnor says that there are no personal accounts for workers because each year's surplus money not spent directly on Social Security benefits simply goes to fund other federal programs.

"There's nothing but a stack of IOUs from the federal government to be paid to the federal government," Abdnor said. "Those IOUs are put into the Social Security 'Trust Fund,' and are called Special Issue, non-marketable government bonds that one part of government owes to another part."

Since 1983, there have been annual surplus payroll taxes to pay retiree benefits, but beginning in 2018 there will be a deficit that will grow every year as more and more Baby Boomers retire.

Either benefits will have to be drastically cut, or payroll taxes will have to be drastically increased to meet the $25 trillion cost of the program out to 2078. To ensure that today's grandchildren will have the same fiscal safety net, the group wants to promote Personal Retirement Accounts with a portion of each worker's payroll taxes.

"This program would have no effect at all on people 55 or older. No one is suggesting that the rules of the system change for people close to retirement or for those receiving benefits," Abdnor said. "But for our kids and our grandkids, something is going to have to change."

The group advocates giving workers a choice to invest four percent of their payroll taxes into an investment account similar to those set up now for federal workers. The money would have decades to build up, and actually would be in a personal retirement account that the workers could choose to take as a lump sum or as an annuity when they retire. The personal accounts could also be willed to their families and would be the only chance that many families below the poverty level would ever have to improve their own retirement.

Workers would have the option of investing the four percent amount, and would still have the remainder in the traditional Social Security program. The "For Our Grandchildren" organization believes that to do nothing to reform Social Security will doom future generations to increased taxes, smaller benefits, the drastic reduction of other government spending or borrowing on an unprecedented scale. Abdnor and her group are convinced that "to do nothing is to force a crushing burden on our children and grandchildren and the economy of this country."

The southeast regional director of the group is David Owens, former state representative for District 97 and former councilman for the town of St. George. Owens believes that when politicians are asked about the future of Social Security, the public only gets partial truths.

"Politicians will always refer to the 'Trust Fund' of Social Security, but they won't say where the money is going to come from to pay for the program as fewer and fewer workers pay the benefits for more and more retirees.," Owens said.

The group is focusing its campaign in the early primary states of Iowa, New York, New Hampshire and South Carolina to try to get it on the presidential agenda for the coming election. Abdnor says that President Bush is behind the privatization plan and is expected to present it to Congress next year. "For Our Grandchildren" is totally bipartisan, and Abdnor said the group will accept support from the entire political spectrum.

"I don't care which president deals with this," she says, "just so that some president deals with it, and deals with it soon."

For more information on the group or to register to help with the project, go to www.forourgrandchildren.org.

T&D Correspondent Stephanie Pietrowski can be reached by e-mail at SPietro122@aol.com or by phone at 843-636-9005.

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