In today's highly polarized political environment, and with four of the six Social Security Trustees political appointees of the Bush Administration, it was inevitable that the Trustees' 2005 report, released yesterday, would sound the administration's themes: we are facing big trouble; we need to act soon. What is surprising is how difficult it remains to make that case. It is almost enough to keep hope alive that at its core, our government is staffed by competent, honest people crunching the numbers.

Yesterday's report moves the date at which trouble will arrive one year sooner. We have until 2041, not 2042 to make corrections to the system to keep it running smoothly. Even with "only" 36 years left, it seems likely we will be able to make the minor adjustments necessary to give our premier social insurance system another century of undisturbed life. And considering that the Trustees in 1997 predicted that the system would run into financial difficulties in 32 years (in 2029), we are justified in treating the calls to action with a grain of salt.

In fact, the Trustee's predictions have been consistently too pessimistic. Since a new Trustee's Report is prepared every year, we have a history of annual predictions to look back on. We ended 2004 with $1,687 billion in the trust funds. How did the Trustee's do over the past decade in predicting this number? The answer is that the Trustees' "intermediate" forecast of reserves at the end of 2004 was on average 5.7% too low. The "high cost" forecast, which is the Trustees' pessimistic forecast, was 15.3% too low. The best record was produced by the Trustees' "low cost," optimistic forecast, which was 2.8% too high. The Trustee's optimistic forecast was on average closest to the actual outcome. Six out of the past ten years, the optimistic forecast was in fact the most accurate.

There is no more pressure today to act hastily to change Social Security than there was in 1995 or 2000. The difference is not in the numbers. These continue to show that we have at least nine more presidential terms to meet the challenges of financing Social Security in the distant future before there is a financial crunch in the system. Nine presidential terms in the other direction places us in Nixon's first term. That is how long we have to make changes to the system to keep it sound. In fact, the last major adjustment to Social Security took place in 1983, just about half way through the Nixon-George W. Bush period. Even if we wait another ten years to make adjustments, we will still have plenty of time left.

There is a good reason that the President is having trouble scaring up support for his drive to change Social Security drastically. There is no evidence to support his call to act hastily, and there is no reason to make major changes to the system. Yesterday's numbers reemphasize that point.

Bernard Wasow is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.