John Boehner, January 28, 2005

Imagine a scenario featuring two college graduates, each starting out in the workforce and beginning to save for their retirement. The two are alike in all ways but one: the first is permitted to invest a portion of her income in a personal retirement account (PRA). The second is forced to pay into a government-run retirement system like our own. Keep this scenario in mind, and we'll come back to it in a moment.

At the start of the 109th Congress and President Bush's second term, a serious discussion on the future of Social Security has finally begun. Long thought of as the "third rail" in American politics (you touch it, you die), Social Security is not poised for disastrous financial difficulties just yet. However, with Baby Boomer retirements gaining steam, the future of the program is anything but clear. We shouldn't wait for the system to falter before we decide to fix it. Instead, we should realize that now is exactly the right time to strengthen the Social Security system by protecting current benefits and crafting a long-term solution to give younger workers the best possible retirement options.

What should such a solution include? Many options are on the table, and I favor a combination of them, summed up in four basic principles. It should:

• Pay the benefits current retirees and workers close to retirement have been promised;

• Give workers a voluntary option to take ownership of their retirement, enabling them to accumulate savings and pass it on to family members;

• Provide workers with the best possible return for their money; and

• Be sustainable for the long-term.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year shows that most young people (ages 18 to 29) support adding PRAs to the long-term Social Security mix. But even more important than this was that the poll revealed a fundamental public misunderstanding about Social Security: that the system provides so-called "guaranteed benefits." In reality, retirees receive what Congress provides; the "guarantee" of Social Security is little more than a promise to pay up. I have no doubt that we'll do everything possible to keep this promise - especially for current and near retirees. But how long can we sustain such an arrangement? Opponents of reform believe we can sustain it into perpetuity, as long as the government determines who gets what. I don't buy into that line of thinking. I'm more comfortable when individuals have a personal stake in their own retirement.

Let's go back to our two young professionals for a moment. Imagine that twenty years have passed and both have been working steadily the entire time. Despite the usual fluctuations in the market, the first worker feels good about the regular return she sees on the money in his PRA. The second worker reads reports every day about the government's inability to pay promised benefits to retirees, which is a situation that may very well be on the horizon. He can't see how his Social Security money is faring because every time he gives it to the government, it is redistributed to someone else. There's no saving and no investment. He just hopes that when he's ready to retire there are enough workers to pay for him. That's uncertainty neither he - nor any worker - deserves to face.

In a system that's sustainable for the long-term, workers won't have to worry about whether Congress will raise the retirement age, cut benefits, or any other scare tactic used by opponents of reform. Workers deserve to retire on their own terms with their own money. The program on which the federal government has long expected people to rely for retirement won't be sustainable forever. The time to strengthen it is now.

Congressman John Boehner, a Republican, represents Ohio's Eighth Congressional District, which includes Miami, Butler, Preble, Darke, and Mercer Counties.