To privatize or not to privatize: That is one decision voters will face during Tuesday's general election.

Both President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry say reforming the current Social Security system is imperative, but each has very different views on the way to go about improving that system.

Bush plans to privatize the entire Social Security system to allow young workers the opportunity to use their Social Security payroll taxes to accumulate funds through investments in various private accounts.

Kerry opposes privatization, but supports attempts to reform and preserve the current system. He plans to use budget surplus funding to strengthen the system, as well as to increase government spending allocated to the program.

Instituted in 1935 as part of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program intended to help American citizens retire, the Social Security program has incurred few changes during its history.

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA) Web site, www.ssa.gov, there are about 45 million senior citizens who receive monthly financial support from the program.

The 2004 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds stated if Social Security is not changed by 2042, scheduled benefits will decrease 27 percent and will continue to decrease each year thereafter.

The report also advises workers to save for their retirement on a personal basis and through employer-sponsored retirement plans, rather than relying on Social Security as their sole source of income.

Bush had proposed a modification of the current system to allow future recipients to privately invest their own funds rather than continue to pay into the system and receive the benefits from the government.

"I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it into a personal savings account," Bush said during the third presidential debate. "I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust."

The Bush campaign has repeatedly drawn attention to Kerry's Senate voting record.

"John Kerry has voted for higher taxes on Social Security benefits eight times and has refused to address the $10 trillion funding gap in Social Security," Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman, said. "His record is one of voting for higher taxes on current retirees and ignoring the needs of future retirees."

Kerry worked on the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which amended the Social Security Act to include more benefits for recipients of Medicare.

He has placed emphasis on balancing the budget and repealing the tax cuts implemented by Bush to extend the life of Social Security.

"We need to get the economy back on the right track; we need to jump-start the economy by rolling back the tax cuts that went to the extremely wealthy and the large corporations," Mark Nevins, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said. "We need to create jobs like we were doing four years ago before George Bush rolled into town, and we need to make sure our budget is balanced."

Throughout the campaign, Bush has said that privatization for prospective recipients can occur without compromising the benefits for current and near-retirees.

"The problem is for our youngsters, a real problem," he said during the Oct. 13 presidential debate.

"We'll honor our commitment to our seniors. But for our children and grandchildren, we need to have a different strategy," he added.

In 2001, Bush appointed a bipartisan President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. The 16-member commission consisted of eight Republicans and eight Democrats, with a member from each party serving as a co-chair.

Olivia Mitchell, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, served as a Democrat on the commission. She said the commission was designed to study and report recommendations to preserve the current system while permitting some personal accounts.

Unlike the plans put forth by the candidates, Mitchell thinks the system can restore itself if the benefit formula is adjusted.

"There needs to be a change in the benefit formula so it is indexed to prices rather than wages," she said. "This would mean no benefit cuts compared to today, and the change would permit the system to return to solvency."

Members of the Kerry campaign have relentlessly attacked Bush's lack of work on his Social Security initiative during his first term.

"When was the last time you heard the president say anything about Social Security except to tell a big group of donors that one of his priorities in his second term would be to privatize Social Security?" Nevins asked. "All he has said is that he wants to privatize it -- that he wants to allow people coming into the system to be able to invest their retirement in the stock market."

Included in its final report in December 2001, the commission presented three models for modifying the current system.

All three include some degree of privatization of benefits, but each progressively increases the government's role in the restoration of the system.

With about 35 million members nationwide, the non-partisan interests group AARP, formerly the Association of American Retired Persons, has a great interest in the election, and the candidates' positions on Social Security.

"AARP is completely opposed to privatization on any level," Desiree Petrus, AARP state director for federal advocacy, said. "Our fight is to keep Social Security strong; we believe that the current system needs to be strengthened."

She said an individual would have to save an additional $250,000 while working to replace the benefits Social Security provides for them over an average lifespan.

Nevins said the cost associated with such privatization would be so great that it would end Social Security as America knows it.

During the Oct. 13 debate, Kerry addressed the cost of implementing the president's plan.

"The [Congressional Budget Office (CBO)] said very clearly that if you were to adopt the president's plan, there would be a $2 trillion hole in Social Security because today's workers pay in to the system for today's retirees," Kerry said. "And the CBO said ... that there would have to be a cut in benefits of 25 percent to 40 percent."

SSA spokeswoman Dorothy Clark said there would be a 2.7 percent increase in benefits next year, which will give each enrollee about $25 more per month. The SSA announced the annual benefit increase last week, in the height of this election season.