What do people do when the facts contradict their claims? Some change the subject. Some own up and salvage what they can. And some just repeat the falsehoods again and again, hoping that in this land of private initiative and optimism, facts are made, not born.

The loyal supporters of Social Security privatization at the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute practice the third strategy, repeating claims again and again, implicitly expressing their faith in the gullibility and ignorance of the American people.

Nothing illustrates the practice of orchestrated deception more clearly than the effort by supporters of Social Security privatization to win minorities to their side. For years, advocates of private accounts have pointed to mortality rates, higher among African-Americans than white Americans, to foster the sense that blacks are throwing their payroll tax dollars down a hole. Private accounts offer a tangible alternative: "real ownership."

There is an ounce of truth to the privatizers' claims. Higher black mortality rates are a fact. But almost nothing else in the pitch to African-Americans is correct.

Does earlier death among African American's deny them benefits; is Social Security "the poor man's death tax," as Cato claims? Well only if you ignore the 19 percent of those collecting survivor, dependents, and disability benefits who are African-American. Social Security provides social insurance that exactly addresses the problems of families that have lost a breadwinner, and not surprisingly, African-Americans are disproportionately represented.

Would private accounts "allow workers to create a nest egg that could be left to their families or even to organizations such as churches," as Heritage claims? Certainly, if you neglect the mandatory annuitization that is built into all three plans for private accounts that the President's commission proposed for most workers. Upon retiring, the average worker would be required to guarantee himself (and perhaps his survivors, depending on the plan) an acceptable income by purchasing an annuity, a contract that would deliver a guaranteed monthly income until death, and then disappear. (It is unlikely that the income would be guaranteed against inflation, as Social Security benefits are.) Of course, if a retiree's nest egg is large enough, he or she would be able to leave something else to survivors. But of course, this is nothing new: someone with substantial saving can leave a legacy today.

Someone who dies before retirement could leave a bequest. But without the survivor benefits of Social Security, survivors are likely to suffer with only a small nest egg from a deceased young worker.

Survivors, and retirees too, cannot simply be left to their own devices. Unless we are prepared to let old people who have outlived their nest eggs or widows and their children fend for themselves, we must require every worker and retiree to use his or her nest egg to provide an annuity and survivor benefits. So much for a legacy freely disposed of.

When all the facts are considered, there is no way in which private accounts can be painted as a boon to African-Americans. African-Americans not only are overrepresented among those receiving disability and survivor benefits, black retirees are likely to have earned less than white retirees, which increases the pay-off they get per dollar of their payroll taxes. Studies that consider all the results of the Social Security system—with its retirement component, its support for survivors and dependents, and its disability program—show that there is little difference between whites and blacks in benefits per dollar of taxes, as the figure below shows.

The only thing that privatization would deliver with a guarantee is greater risk. Workers and their families would no longer know how much income they would get in case of disability or early death of a breadwinner. Their retirement incomes would be determined by the lottery of financial markets. Everyone could sink or swim on his own. As we debate the high-stakes options of dismantling our central social insurance system, let's stick to the facts.

Bernard Wasow is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation.