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Six members of the advisory council, including a former Social Security commissioner and three union leaders, backed a third option that would allow government bureaucrats, rather than individuals, to invest up to 40% of Social Security's assets in the stock market. It would also increase payroll taxes--not in exchange for higher retirement benefits but for lower ones than workers were promised back when taxes were lower. And when might this promise, like the others, become inoperative? No one can say. Little wonder that many workers now judge that their nest egg would be safer in their own hands than in the government maw.