President Bush has proposed reforming Social Security by creating personal retirement accounts in order to resolve the program's looming financial instability.

John Kerry has ruled out privatizing Social Security or cutting benefits.

This leaves few attractive alternatives, according to Dorcas R. Hardy, the former commissioner of Social Security and now a co-chairman of the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity.

Following Kerry's lead would end up raising payroll taxes to pay for revenue shortfalls by a whopping 20 percent - a level Hardy warns would likely stifle economic growth, he wrote in the Washington Times.

According to Hardy, Kerry's class warfare strategy of reducing benefits by 80 percent for those who earn more than $200,000 annually would lessen program liabilities by a mere 5 percent.

The president argues that personal retirement accounts would allow workers to build nest eggs and earn much greater rates of return than Social Security currently provides.

Hardy says that such personal accounts would allow workers to receive around 60 percent more in benefits than is presently offered by Social Security.

President Bush's plan would allow workers to pass on this retirement nest egg to "whomever they wish" after their death.

Under the present system, the president warns, it would be impossible for Social Security to survive as it is without raising taxes.

Wrote Hardy, "By creating a system of personal accounts that workers can voluntary opt into, the federal government can ensure that full Social Security benefits will be provided to younger workers, without another round of payroll tax increases or benefit reductions."

He quotes Kerry as telling the Democratic National Convention that "as president, I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits."

Having claimed that the system will need only "minor changes," Hardy said that Kerry "seems to have boxed himself into a corner from which it will prove hard to emerge.

"Since he also has ruled out extending the retirement age during the same debate, the Democratic presidential candidate has little room left to maneuver to save a system that simply cannot survive."

Since Kerry has adamantly opposed personal retirement accounts, opposed benefit cuts and refuses to raise the retirement age, "he has only has a few options left, such as increasing payroll taxes to nearly 20 percent, increasing the national debt, which is at odds with his goal of cutting the deficit in half in four years while at the same time providing universal health care, increasing educational spending, funding alternative energy research, etc."

"Mr. Kerry has yet to provide any ideas or leadership regarding one of America's most popular and important programs," Hardy concludes.

"Inaction on Social Security today is irresponsible as the system moves closer and closer to insolvency. Mr. Kerry needs a new vision rather than resigning himself to a status quo that simply does not work."