When I heard about the President’s plan to privatize Social Security, one phrase came to mind – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Under the President’s plan, you will be able to divert a portion of your payroll taxes into a private investment account, instead of into the Social Security trust fund. The President claims this plan will save Social Security, but he leaves out four important points.

First, the President says that his plan will not cut benefits to current retirees, but it will. Since less money will be going into the Social Security trust fund, benefits will be cut by about 40% -- almost half.

Second, the President says that with private accounts you will receive more money when you retire. What he doesn’t tell you is that the government will heavily tax the return on your private investment.

The President also says that the money in the account will be yours. Again, this will not be the case. You will have no control over your investments because the government will invest it for you.

Finally, the President’s plan will cost $2 trillion. To pay for this, we will have to borrow the money from foreign countries, further increasing the national debt.

Dismantling Social Security in favor of risky private accounts is just too dangerous. The President is telling us we should trust the private sector with our savings. The United Kingdom’s 25-year experiment with private accounts is now viewed as a dismal failure, to say the least. Here in the United States, during the 1980s, thousands of seniors invested in the private sector and lost their entire life savings in the Savings and Loan scandal. Americans were given empty promises by the government then, and you are being given empty promises now.

Social Security faces a long-term challenge, not a crisis. The program is solvent for four more decades, until 2042, and even after that it will be able to pay out 80% of benefits.

I want to be clear; this does not mean that we do not need to create a plan. But we need a plan to strengthen and preserve Social Security, not a radical plan to dismantle the program. If your roof has a leak, do you repair the roof, or do you buy a new house? We need to strengthen our current program, not move ahead with a radically different one.

Without Social Security, almost half of all seniors would live in poverty. In the 43rd Congressional district, one in 11 people depends on Social Security. We can’t leave our seniors to “sink or swim.” They have paid into Social Security their whole lives and this plan threatens to cut their benefits when they need it most. They deserve this money. It’s their money.

Social Security privatization will affect everyone. Whether it is you, your mother, your father, your children, or your neighbors, everyone will be affected. I do not and will not support the privatization of Social Security.