Straight talk on Social Security

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Reviewed by Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven

SAVING SOCIAL SECURITY (FROM CONGRESS) By Bert McLachlan 257 pp., Leawood, Kansas: Leathers Publishing, 2001

The combination of a payas-you-go financial

structure and the expected rapid growth in the number of retirees has created a near consensus that Social Security will be in major trouble in the coming years. There is no similar consensus, yet, regarding what to do about it. But there is broad support for moving toward advance funding of Social Security with new individual retirement savings accounts.

While polls show that a majority of the public already supports private Social Security accounts, fresh and entertaining discussions of reform aimed at the layman are always useful. That is what Bert McLachlan provides in his new book, Saving Social Security (From Congress). The author, a retired corporate comptroller who has selfpublished the book in the hope of adding to the Social Security debate, offers an easy-to-understand volume, complete with newspaper comic strips, that illustrates the bankruptcy of the current system and the need to move to a privatized approach.