Social Security is going to fail. You know it, I know it, the whole country knows it.

The question is, then, what is the best way to fix it?

But first, there is the debate of the seriousness of Social Security’s woes. Chicago Sun-Times columnist William O’Rourke declared recently that President Bush is crying wolf on the matter. Although O’Rourke didn’t mention it specifically, he might have been alluding to the fact that Social Security has and will continue to have large surpluses for a while. What Mr. O’Rourke missed, and what makes Social Security a more immediate problem, is that our government has already spent those surpluses. This has occurred under Republican and Democrat presidencies and it has occurred when each party controlled congress. It isn’t a matter of politics. It’s a matter of incompetence on the part of our lawmakers, who have siphoned off the surplus for other purposes and left Treasury bonds — the government’s version of IOUs — in their place.

This means that when Social Security’s expenses begin to catch up with its revenues, the money that was supposed to be stored up to handle the shortfall must come from the government’s general fund. You know, that federal government which is woefully in debt.

So is Social Security in immediate danger? No. We have just been selling the future for today for the last 20-something years, and that has become a fiscal mountain that will continue to build up if nothing is done. We’ll reach the foot of that mountain as the baby boomers start to retire around 2018 and Social Security starts taking in less than it pays out. Unfortunately, the shortfalls will not be an acute problem and will only continue to worsen as life expectancy increases. According to law, the federal budget will have to make up the growing shortfalls until 2042, after which only Social Security money can pay out benefits. At that time, benefits will only be partially paid out (between 73 and 80 percent, depending on how rosy you think the economy will be).

So we’re now agreed; Social Security is a big problem, whether it qualifies as immediate or not. There have been two general strategies to fix it. One says that all we need to do is tweak the numbers a little to make it feasible for another couple of decades. This involves raising the retirement age, increasing taxes and decreasing benefits. The other says we should start supplementing it with privatized accounts. These accounts will be invested in the stock market and grow more rapidly than Social Security benefits alone.

Unfortunately, neither of these “solutions” will rid us of the mountain of debt we’re facing; they’ll only reduce it in their own way. The important difference between the two options is how they will hold up in the long term. Unless our society makes a radical shift as far as health and population growth, the “tweak the numbers’ solution” is unfeasible because we will have to continue to tweak the numbers indefinitely. This will further reduce the benefits and further increase the stress on the economy with higher taxes.

On the other hand, President Bush’s choice — privatized accounts — will allow citizens to accumulate more wealth for their retirement instead of less. A severe downturn in the economy could derail that plan, though. If such an event happens, Social Security will likely be the least of our problems.

Unfortunately, making such radical changes to Social Security will cost a lot of money — somewhere in the ballpark of $3 trillion. However, compared to the $10 trillion-plus debt currently facing Social Security, it is the right solution.