The leading Republican Social Security reform bill would extend the life span of the Social Security trust fund by 11 years but would also significantly increase federal spending, according to findings released in September by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The Growing Real Ownership for Workers (GROW) Act from Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, would push back the year in which the trust fund would be exhausted from 2052 to 2063, the CBO projected. This reduction would occur because traditional Social Security benefits would be reduced between 2012 and 2052 for those beneficiaries who choose to have the personal accounts that would be created by the plan. Overall benefits could be higher for beneficiaries than they would be under current law, though, depending on the accounts' investment performance.

(While the CBO forecasts that, under current law, the trust fund would be exhausted in 2052, Social Security trustees project that the fund will last only until 2042.)

Bill supporters have promoted the legislation by saying that it would use Social Security surpluses to fund personal investment accounts, a different tack than the one President Bush has favored, which involves "carving out" a portion of the Social Security tax for such accounts, although most Democrats have been no less vehement in their opposition to this approach than they have been to the president's. The surpluses are now used to purchase special Treasury bonds for the Social Security trust fund and the money received for the bonds is spent by Congress in the same manner as other revenues.

What the bill really would do, though, is increase federal spending between the year of enactment and 2021 - the year in which CBO projects that Social Security would start paying out more in benefits than it receives in revenues if the bill were to become law - by an amount that happens to be equal to Social Security surpluses during that time. So, the surpluses would continue to be spent as they are now - the report notes that they "would still be available for use for other programs and activities" - while the government's general fund would pay for personal accounts. This would increase government spending by about $1 trillion between 2007 and 2021, according to the report.

The CBO's findings may be irrelevant, though. While Republicans leaders, including House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas of California, have insisted as late as September that consideration of Social Security reform legislation has only been "slightly delayed," others in the GOP have acknowledged that competing issues, such as Hurricane Katrina relief, are likely to knock Social Security off of the congressional agenda for this year.