The contempt for and ignorance of the Social Security system displayed by columnist Will Seibold in his January 27, 2005 editorial "Uncle Sam's social security in need of freedom and honesty" was glib at best and gut-wrenching at worst. Halfway into his ill-conceived piece, Seibold asks his readers to remember that the "crisis" (italics Seibold's) at hand and privatization are two different things. Though Seibold attempts to support this false dichotomy through shoddy ideological ranting, I will explain why we cannot divorce the "crisis" (italics mine) from privatization as well as offer alternative solutions.

Given that Seibold used italics to refer to current state of Social Security it is safe to assume that he, like myself, believes that there is no Social Security crisis. This "assumption" is backed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which predicts that Social Security, as it stands, will be able to fully meet it obligations until 2053 at which point it would still be able to pay for 80 percent of benefits. The program's trustees take a more pessimistic stance, predicting that the program, left untouched, would be completely solvent until 2042 at which point it would still be able to pay 70 percent of its benefits. Given either scenario, it is crystal clear that there is no imminent crisis.

Here is where the problem with Seibold's argument accelerates. Are you ready? The Bush Administration is selling the idea of partial privatization to the American public on the premise that there is an imminent Social Security crisis. Does selling part of the Bush agenda based on faulty premises sound familiar to anyone? Separating the "crisis" and privatization would be akin to, let's say, separating non-existent WMD's from our invasion of Iraq.

With the "crisis" and privatization now inseparable, let's examine what Social Security is according to Seibold. In his words, the Social Security system "is the greatest pyramid scheme invented by man" and "the ultimate Robin Hood program moving billions from wealthy to poor." What Seilbold fails to mention is that without this 'pyramid scheme' millions of our nations elderly would not be afforded the opportunity to live their golden years with some semblance of dignity. According to the Century Foundation on Social Security, a non-partisan and non-profit organization, Social Security keeps 30% of our the American elderly population out of poverty. He also fails to mention, or maybe he was just ignorant of the fact that this 'Robin Hood program' does not touch one penny above a $90,000 annual income. Though $90,000 is far above what my parent's could ever hope to make in a year, I certainly do not consider a household earning that amount as wealthy.

So what do we do as a nation? Should we just sit back and do nothing about Social Security? Do we allow the Bush Administration to advance this radical and heavily partisan proposal? I suggest that we look no further than the advice given by President Bush himself. After defeating Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election by smallest plurality of any incumbent president, President Bush called for greater national unity. I suggest this administration take its own advice and work towards more bi-partisan measures such as raising the cap on earnings used to fund Social Security above $90,000, indexing benefits for a growing life expectancy, increasing the retirement age and any other measures that do not gamble with the future of the next generations of retires.

As for Mr. Seibold, in your search for freedom and truth, I suggest you reexamine your definitions of freedom and truth.

Lowery is a 2nd year graduate student in the foreign languages department and is a teaching assistant.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Feb. 1 2005.