The truth comes out now. President Bush and the Republicans's plans to revamp social security by allowing privatization can only be accomplished by a reduction in benefits to tomorrow's retirees:

Some of the Republican proposals would raise the age when people can start to receive benefits. Others would reduce payments to beneficiaries to account for longer life expectancies. Still others would reduce payments to married couples and scale back the annual increases that are made to keep pace with inflation.

But the biggest single idea is included in the plan the White House most often points to, abandoning the practice of setting benefits as a share of people's pre-retirement earnings. Analysts affiliated with both political parties say that that one change could save more than $10 trillion over the next 75 years, more than enough to wipe out Social Security's projected shortfall. People retiring today or even in the next 10 years would feel almost no impact.

But in decades to come, analysts say, many people would see sharper drops in their incomes when they retired. And because benefits would not keep up with wages, many retirees could feel steadily poorer compared with neighbors who still work.

How much more will it cost the country when the last of the baby boomers need food stamps and medicaid as well as medicare because of reduced social security benefits? How about just giving us back dollar for dollar what we put in since age 16 and we'll take care of ourselves, thank you. What a rip off.