Social Security was on the verge of failure in the early 1980s until a bipartisan political committee, led by U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, stirred controversy while creating painful benefit cuts and legislative compromises to save the program.

Today, President Bush is pushing Social Security reform that would include private investment accounts, a proposal that also is stirring controversy.

A comparison of the two periods of U.S. history was led by a panel of experts Monday night at Kansas University’s Dole Institute of Politics. About 100 people attended the panel discussion, “The Politics of the Third Rail: Social Security Reform in 1983 and Today.”

Today, while Social Security’s future solvency is in question, it is not on the verge of immediate bankruptcy as it was in 1983. And there is no one of the stature of Dole and fellow Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York to lead the way toward changes, said Carolyn L. Weaver, who was a staff member on the Senate Committee on Finance under Dole.

“These two men clearly realized nobody was going to be happy with the things that were to be done,” said Weaver, one of the panelists.

A second panelist, Dave Ekerdt, director of the KU Gerontology Center, noted that in 1983 Congress struck a political deal that allowed lawmakers to return to their home districts and say they had been forced to make unpopular Social Security decisions with their particular parties. Today there is no philosophical discussion on the issue, Ekerdt said. The Bush administration is “charging along without a consensus.”

The third panelist, Max Skidmore, professor of political science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, questioned the need for drastic Social Security reform at this time.

Skidmore noted that if Social Security were lost or drastically altered in favor of private accounts, people would lose guaranteed inflation security, spousal benefits and disability protection, among others.

“No private retirement scheme provides what Social Security does,” Skidmore said.