Columbus, Ohio

In all the confusion surrounding the current Social Security debate, there is one inescapable truth: Social Security is broken, and it's headed for disaster unless serious changes are made now.

While President Bush's commitment to saving the program was evident during the campaign and during his press conference after the election, his plans remain too vague to be called a solution. Similarly, there is no consensus in Congress to indicate that its members are willing to attack this problem.

To repair Social Security, we have to be clear about what's destroying it. We'll soon be taking more money out of the system than we're putting into it, which means that one day it will go broke. In 1945 there were about 42 workers paying into the system for each person receiving benefits. Today that ratio is 3.3 to 1, and by 2040, there will be just two workers for each beneficiary.

At the same time, Americans are living longer. That's good news, but it means retirees will receive benefits for longer, putting further pressure on the fund. Americans are also having fewer children, which means fewer workers will be paying the taxes that help finance benefits.

Furthermore, benefits are growing faster than inflation. First-time Social Security benefits are now tied to wage growth, and wages are rising faster than prices. The result: over the next 75 years, benefits are expected to increase nearly eighteenfold, while prices will go up less than half that rate. In order to keep pace, our children and their children will have to work longer hours and pay more taxes. Between now and 2080, benefits will most likely exceed payroll taxes by $120 trillion.

How do we get out of this mess? To preserve the system for the long term, we must change the way first-time benefits are calculated. Growth in initial benefits should be linked to the consumer price index - not to wage growth.

A switch to price-indexing from wage-indexing would accomplish two things. It would eliminate the need for future payroll tax increases, and it would still allow initial benefits to rise over time, albeit at a slower rate. Instead of rising eighteenfold over the next 75 years, benefits would likely increase by a factor of eight.

We should also create Social Security savings accounts for those under 55. Workers could invest some of their payroll taxes in their own savings account in a mixture of conservative stocks and bonds, much as members of Congress and federal employees do. In exchange for investing a part of their payroll taxes, workers would give up some of their future Social Security benefit - probably about 25 cents for every dollar invested.

Older Americans would be exempt from both changes for a simple reason: our country's greatest legacy is that one generation sacrifices for the next. These people have already made their sacrifices on behalf of the baby boom generation. Now it's our turn. While this sacrifice is small compared to the sacrifices made by those who came before us, it's one that will safeguard Social Security for years to come.

John Kasich, a Republican representative from Ohio from 1983 to 2000, was chairman of the House Budget Committee.