Hagel's bill, the Saving Social Security Act, would allow workers under 45 — instead of those under 55, as the president has proposed — to move as much as 4 percent of their payroll tax into investment accounts. It also would raise the retirement age from 67 to 68 and reduce benefits for individuals who retire at a younger age. [Italics ours.]

You read that and disappointment washes over you. You can't possibly justify spending two trillion dollars to overhaul Social Security when the potential benefits are so limited by how much of your taxes you can invest. Thus, you decide not to support the bill and, in fact, actively work against it, calling your Senators to voice your disapproval.

Unfortunately, Senator Hagel doesn't understand his own bill and neither does the Los Angeles Times. If they did, and if the Times had written what the bill actually does do, you would support it.

There are often two ways that people receive information--from the source of the information and from the press. This is particularly true in politics, where politicians talk about their plans and the press reports on them. However, politicians on both sides of the aisle cannot be trusted to be entirely honest and forthright with their information. There certainly are times that they are, but too often they couch their activities--or the activities of their opponents--in broad strokes of rhetoric that aim for emotional responses and, often times, obscure the facts of what they are proposing. Therefore, it is crucial that the public can turn to the second source of information--the press--to obtain a full and honest account of the situation.

Objective journalism is crucial to a functioning society and democracy. Unfortunately, the public simply cannot make personal contact with those who make the news and who shape our society and government. The vast majority of the public does not have time to do their own in-depth research on various issues so that they are properly informed. Instead, they depend on the press to do it for them. We, the public, sit down in the morning or evening with the local paper, we turn on the local evening news, we watch the network news shows or CNN, Fox or MSNBC, or we read Time and Newsweek. Perhaps we check out alternative weeklies or read our news online. Either way, the majority of the public partakes in journalism in some form and depends on it to provide them with an honest, objective look at the world. We depend on the press to educate us so that we can make informed decisions.