In the new movie, "Deep Impact" a comet is on a collision course with Earth, in what is sure to be an E.L.E (extinction-level event). Instead of sitting here and letting our species become extinct the way the dinosaurs did, plans are made for avoiding the collision and for species survival of such a collision. Just as people should do what they can to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming comet or with an oncoming vehicle, we should do what we can to avoid head-on social collisions as well, as is predicted to occur with Social Security. The problem is avoidable and the solutions not particularly painful if we act soon.

Social Security began during the Great Depression as a well-intentioned program to provide help for those who were not able to save sufficiently to provide for themselves when they could no longer work. Instead of acting as a forced savings plan, and providing a steady income for retirees, the system was financed in what is called a pay-as-you-go scheme. Those who were then able to retire at 65 were paid out of the withholdings of those who were still working. Just as with any pyramid scheme, Social Security financing depended on an ever- increasing base of people paying into the fund to support those who get checks from the fund. While private pyramid schemes are both illegal and fraudulent, the pyramid scheme we call Social Security is legal.

The Great Depression plays into Social Security’s story of the colliding generations in another important way. During those very lean years, people had fewer children, because most could not afford extra mouths to feed or extra backs to clothe. After the Great Depression came World War II, when many potential fathers were away from the country fighting for their country and their families. But upon their return, these brave men started their own families for which they had fought so hard--and they had large families—the "baby boom."

In the 1960s it became easier to limit family sizes with "the pill" and generations after the baby boomers were smaller.

With a small depression-era generation followed by a much larger baby-boom generation, pyramid-style Social Security financing has been easy. Benefits were expanded, and the fund is still running a large surplus.

But those of the baby-boom generation will start retiring in 2015 with fewer workers to support the baby-boomers in their retirement years--estimates are only 2 workers per retiree. To fund baby-boom retirees will take such a huge bite out of future workers’ pay that workers will despise their elders.

Advances in health care have made the problem worse because people are living longer. But this provides the seeds of a solution.

Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) is the Democratic chief deputy of the Center for Strategic International Studies, a Washington think tank made up of economists, financiers, business-people and two Republican and two Democratic office-holders. The Center for Strategic International Studies has come up with a bi-partisan plan to save Social Security. The plan calls for gradually pushing up the eligibility age from 65 in 2017 to 70 by 2029.

The plan also calls for allowing people to direct the investment of about one-sixth of the amount that they and their employer pay into Social Security in individual retirement accounts, a partial privatization of Social Security.

Along with the President Clinton’s recent announcement of a substantial budget surplus for the coming fiscal year was his pledge to not cut taxes until Social Security’s long-run problems are fixed. Some Congressional leaders have made similar statements.

While the generations will not collide for another 20-30 years, we had better do something very soon before it is too late. The status quo puts us on a collision course and it takes a couple of decades to turn things around. But it looks as if our current President and our current Congress are willing to alter the course. Thank our lucky stars.