Your view: Student's view

I am an 18-year-old student from Risco High School currently enrolled in a current issues class. I am sending you this letter to discuss my viewpoint of President Bush's Social Security plan.

The quote, "It's your money, your choice, your future" sums up my entire views on this controversial issue. President Bush is striving to change the current Social Security program from one that is a social insurance program to one that is a private investment program. His new plan would seek to create over 150 million individual investment accounts to invest in the stock and bond markets.

In the present Social Security system, there are no winners and losers, but President Bush's plan would depend on a very unpredictable stock market. This stock market would produce winners and losers with many factors determining the outcome. If a person retires when the market is down, that person's retirement would be lowered, and vise versa.

Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system with current workers contributing for current retirees and at the same time earning a guaranteed right to benefits they will get once they retire. President Bush doesn't have much to say about these transition cost issues. This plan has worked perfectly for over 60 years and as the old saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." So I ask Mr. Busy, why do you insist on changing a system that has worked well for all those years?

Brian Cale