why risk Social Security benefits to solve a phony "crisis"?

[Michael Brennan <MikeEd22Brennan@webtv.net>]

   Some may want to "save" Social Security because they "know" future workers won't be able to support retirees. But no one knows future birth or immmigration rates or  especially how much money future workers will have for the next 75 years. The Social Security trustees acknowledge "the uncertainty inherent in projections of this type and length." (1999 Annual Report, Page 11)
   
    The Social Security trustees in 1999 predicted that economic growth (real Gross Domestic Product), which was 3.9% both for 1997 and 1998, will plummet 48% to 2.0% in 2000, and stay that low or lower (down to 1.2%) for 75 years!  But former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich suspects that if growth were to average 2.4% or better, "the Trust Funds would remain solvent for the duration." (Letter to Syd Bild, M.D. April 16, 1999).

    The trustees'  predictions in 1997 for that year and 1998 missed $260 billion in economic growth.   If they miss that much in short-range predictions, the type they are most confident about, why should we believe their long-range predictions?