FDR once said there was nothing he loved "as much as a good fight." If Franklin Delano Roosevelt were around today, he'd have his hands full defending one of his most enduring legacies, Social Security. 

The struggle over Social Security is not about how to keep the plan solvent. That's the red herring thrown up by the Bush administration to cover up their real intent: the dismantling of all the New Deal programs that have helped ensure America 's economic prosperity over the past 70 years. 

FDR's goal was, as he put it, "greater security for the average man." Social Security was part of that goal. It's a promise from America to all Americans, a pledge that our nation will not abandon its senior citizens, that no one who worked hard would have to live in abject poverty simply because they were too old or too ill to work. 

Now President Bush, under the guise of "reform," is trying to break that promise. He wants to create private accounts instead of guaranteed Social Security benefits. He sells it by espousing that private individuals should control their own funds, and that in the long run individuals will earn more in the stock market than Social Security will pay them in benefits. Sounds great, right? But the dollars don't match the rhetoric. 

Sen. Charles Schumer has information on his Senate Web page that shows just how much money Americans will lose if the president gets his way. A teacher born in 1980, making around $40,000 a year, would lose more than $7,000 a year in retirement income under the Bush proposal. Seems to me FDR's New Deal was a whole lot better than the bad deal the Bush administration is trying to foist upon us. 

The irony is that not only is the Bush plan bad for benefits - it's bad for the deficit. The very problems the president sites as raison d'etre for his "reform" would only be exacerbated; not only won't private accounts solve Social Security's fiscal problems, Bush's plan would actually increase the federal deficit by more than $2 trillion. There's the double whammy: Not only will our children be receiving less in retirement income, they'll also be paying more to get our nation out of debt. 

I recently saw a survey of younger Americans that asked them if they supported the president's proposal for private accounts. Most of them said yes, they would support Bush's proposal; they liked the idea of managing their own money. The survey went on to ask them: If your investments failed, should there be a government program to provide some sort of financial security when you get older? Again, most of them said yes. 

Those young Americans surveyed, along with the president, seem to have forgotten that we already have such a program, a program that for more than 60 years has helped keep senior citizens out of poverty: Social Security. Let's keep it strong and solvent, but most importantly, let's keep it.