A North Carolina election may well be the key to determining control of the U.S. Senate.

In this election, Erskine Bowles has charged Elizabeth Dole with advocating the wasteful diversion of payroll-deduction funds from Social Security to the stock market, while claiming he would protect them in the Social Security Trust Fund. In actuality, Dole would be protecting them in high-return, individual Social Security accounts. They would gain three times as much return and could not be pillaged by Congress.

Bowles would risk these Social Security funds in the low-return Social Security Fund, which has been pillaged by Congress for special interests and expensive pork barrel projects averaging about $60 billion per year.

Thus Dole advocates retention of all current Social Security benefits for current retirees while strengthening it for future retirees, while Bowles advocates the current plan, which will continue to drain the fund and require reduced benefits for future retirees.

Robert Reebie
Southern Pines