That announcement signals two things.

One, it’s election time. Republican Senate hopeful Mike McGavick, GOP Reps. Dave Reichert and Cathy McMorris, and other candidates who support diverting some portion of Social Security taxes into private accounts love to campaign on the issue. They tell us that you and I can make more investing our Social Security money individually than the government can.

Two, it shows that they still don’t get it.

Despite one-party control of Congress and the White House, Republicans have tried since Bush first took office to shift Social Security money into private accounts. But when it came time to explain the details of how that would work, they have been forced to admit that there is no way to divert $1 trillion out of the system into private accounts without cutting benefits, raising taxes, or both.

President Bush’s handpicked pro-privatization Social Security commission figured that out back in 2001, his first year in office. Instead of issuing a proposal as requested, the commission put out a confusing jumble of "recommendations" and quietly disappeared back into the lecture circuit because everyone knew that a higher-taxes, lower-benefits privatization plan was a non-starter.

But somehow, every two years since -- coincidentally in congressional election years -- candidates revive this issue.  Let’s face it, the concept of controlling your retirement investments and earning higher returns is a seductive talking point.  But as always, the devil’s in the details.

Organized labor has always opposed Social Security privatization because we believe it jeopardizes the foundation of one of the greatest government success stories in American history.

There was a time in this country when the poverty rate among the elderly was double that of the population as a whole. Now it has fallen to about 10 percent, considerably lower than the overall national figure.

Social Security is the reason. Today, more than half of the elderly would have incomes below the poverty line were it not for Social Security. Studies have shown that Social Security lifts more Americans out of poverty than all other government programs combined.

What McGavick and other candidates who support partial privatization ignore when comparing "returns" from our Social Security investment with those of the stock market is that the program is so much more than just savings for retirement. It is a social contract between generations of Americans that guarantees benefits not just when we are older, but if something happens to us before then.

It’s not just savings, it’s disability insurance, and it’s life insurance.

That’s why more than three million children are among Social Security’s beneficiaries. Hundreds of children lose a working parent every day in this country. The majority of those children will receive Social Security checks every month until they are 18, significant supplemental income for their families, whether their lost loved one was a corporate executive or a custodian.

There are other reasons why Social Security is nothing like a savings account. The taxes we pay into it aren’t going into some kind of a, say, "lockbox" to wait until we need it. It goes right back out the door to pay for the benefits of current beneficiaries, those of the previous generation. And we expect our sons and daughters to do the same to guarantee our benefits when our time comes.

The difference between what we pay in and pay right back out used to be called the "Social Security surplus." Now it’s just called "spent" because this White House and Congress has spent every penny of it, and then some.

So next time you hear candidates tout the wonders of private Social Security accounts, ask them how they plan to divert $1 trillion in Social Security taxes into private accounts and still meet obligations to the current generation of retirees, disabled, and children of those who died young.

They won’t find the answer in their talking points.