Rhetoric Rules Debate on Social Security Reform

The future of your Social Security benefits is at great risk and trapped in a system hurtling toward bankruptcy. Or maybe your government-sponsored retirement benefits are just fine. It all depends on whom you ask.

Uncertainty about the financial health of the Social Security system is playing a huge role in Americans' retirement planning -- and likely will work its way into the fall election season. President George W. Bush and the presumptive Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well as candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives, will offer their ideas for fixing a retirement benefit system some critics say is beyond repair.

The recent release of a key government report that says the system is in better shape than generally believed brings the debate into focus once again, though it doesn't directly address the issue of private retirement accounts, support for which is pretty much split along partisan lines. ...