In 1935 an act called The Social Security Act was made. This set up an insurance system called Social Security. The system has three major parts: old age, survivors of wars, and disability insurance; unemployment insurance; and workers compensation. The first part is made so when people that are old or disabled retire they can have money. The

Second part is unemployment. This was made so when people lose their jobs they can be helped in the future. The third part is workers compensation: If you get hurt and are unable to go to work then workers compensation will pay for you being out of work and give you money. Medicare and Medicaid are also programs that were made to help older or poor citizens pay for their medical expenses.

In the Social Security issue both Al Gore and George Bush support many of the same things. Both of them support partial privatization of social security by allowing participants to invest 2% of their payroll taxes in the Stock Market, They both support the eliminatio

n of the social security earnings limit which was just signed on April 7, 2000 by Bill Clinton. Al Gore supports using $2.2 trillion of the social security surplus to shore up the program and pay down the debt. This will save billions of dollars in interest, which can be redirected to ensuring the solvency of the social security trust fund until 2050. Gore also supports an increase in benefits to widows and eliminating the "motherhood penalty," which is the resulting reduction in benefits for women who take time off work to raise their children. George Bush opposes an increase in the current 12.4 percent payroll tax. Bush supports placing a "lock box" on payroll taxes to prohibit the borrowing against the Social !

To truly save Social Security, something politically uncomfortable will have to be done, whether it's raising payroll taxes, cutting benefits or raising the age of eligibility. Bush has already promised no new payroll taxes; Gore's hoping to avoid all three. Despite the sudden emergence of a serious election-year debate on a very big issue, there's still a lot of parts of the puzzle no one wants to talk about

In their debates Bush came out with guns blazing for privatizing the program, setting aside an unspecified portion of the payroll tax paid by employers into the fund, currently 12.4 percent of salaries, for individua

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