The great across-the-U.S.A. Social Security selling tour

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TOPEKA, Kan. -- At the memorial building in downtown Topeka this week, James Lockhart presented a crowd of Kansans with several options for fixing Social Security, but avoided endorsing one specific plan.

"The key thing to get out is that there's a sense of urgency here," Mr. Lockhart, deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said in an interview before the Tuesday event. He later showed the mostly gray-haired crowd a bevy of graphs and charts illustrating the system's approaching financial woes, and told them, "The sooner we act, the better. ... It's unsustainable, and we need to make changes."

Mr. Lockhart is on a whirlwind, cross-country tour, teaming up with Republican lawmakers at more than 15 town-hall meetings so far. He joined Kansas Rep. Jim Ryun for the Topeka event before heading to California.

The idea of Social Security personal accounts -- which President Bush is pushing -- is being presented as one possible solution, along with several others. "I don't think it's the only solution," Mr. Ryun said. "I want to bring everyone to the table."

The crowd of about 100 was disproportionately older and skeptical of reform.

"I like it the way it is," Audrey Frentzel, an 80-year-old retired hospital worker, said of Social Security. Both Mr. Lockhart and Mr. Ryun stressed that older folks wouldn't see any change to their benefits, but Mrs. Frentzel said she doesn't think private accounts would help poor people at all.

Almost every hand in the room shot up during the question-and-answer time, which was heated at points. But Mr. Lockhart noted that while audience members had pointed questions, none questioned whether the system has financial problems or needs change. "They realize we have to do something," he said, adding that this wasn't the public sentiment a year ago.

Still, the crowd was tough.

Sylvester Zollichoffee, 71, received applause when he asked Mr. Lockhart and Mr. Ryun why the president doesn't pay back Social Security trust fund money and stop using it for other purposes.

"If they pay that money back into Social Security, Social Security would be solvent for years," said Mr. Zollichoffee, who came to the meeting armed with a printed transcript of a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing and a press release from Sen. Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat and ranking member of the panel, who has criticized Mr. Bush for this reason.