"The Social Security debate is a great mask. We wear the mask to avoid talking about failed promises.

Go behind the mask and consider each facet.

Medicare is, perhaps, the nearest thing this country has to national health insurance. Its costs are growing faster than Social Security (some estimates predict that Medicare's drug benefit alone will create an unfunded liability greater than Social Security).

Next, our national savings rate is almost non-existent. The national savings rate was 12.3 percent in 1950, dropping to 3.5 percent by 1994. Five years later it was under 3 percent. Last year the national savings rate was about 1 percent. Only a few Americans will have saved enough for retirement."

Get the Story:
Mark Trahant: A look behind retirement fund masks (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 5/8)

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