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ByCandiceChoi TheAssociatedPress NEW YORK A revamped Diet Pepsi without aspar- tame is popping up on store shelves. So will peo- ple start flocking back to the soda? PepsiCo says its new Diet Pepsi should be avail- able nationally this week. In response to customer feedback, the company said earlier this year that it would replace the aspar- tame in the drink with an- other artificial sweetener that has less baggage. The rollout will test the theory that the sweetener is to blame for fleeing cus- tomers, or if other issues might be at play. Other diet sodas that still have aspar- tame include Diet Coke, Diet Dr Pepper and Fanta Zero. Sales of traditional diet sodas have been falling. Industry executives blam- ing the freefall on un- founded concerns people have about aspartame. Two years ago, Coca-Cola even tested ads in select newspapers defending the safety of the sweetener. "It's the No. 1 thing that our customers have been calling about," said Seth Kaufman, a senior vice president at PepsiCo. At least in the short term, Diet Pepsi sales are likely to see bump from the marketing push around the new formula, which will include in-store sam- pling and discounting in coming weeks. In terms of taste, Kaufman said it's not iden- tical but that the drink should still be familiar to fans of Diet Pepsi. It's not the first at- tempt by PepsiCo Inc. to lift flagging sales of Diet Pepsi. In 2012, the com- pany tried improving the drink by combining aspar- tame with acesulfame po- tassium, often called ace- K, another artificial sweet- ener that helps prevent the taste from degrading over time. The latest version of Diet Pepsi will also have ace-K in addition to su- cralose, best known by the brand name Splenda. Cans and bottles of the new Diet Pepsi have been making their way through the distribution in recent weeks. Stores that don't do a lot of business may still have the old versions stocked. This weekend, for instance, a store in New York City had the old and new versions side by side. The new cans will be marked with the words "Now Aspartame Free" above the Pepsi circle logo. NUTRITION CANDICECHOI—ASSOCIATEDPRESS Bottles of Diet Pepsi with, le , and without aspartame, right, sit in a case at a store in New York. In response to customer feedback, PepsiCo said earlier this year that it would replace the aspartame in Diet Pepsi with another artificial sweetener that has less baggage. Diet Pepsi gets rid of aspartame, but will customers return? IT only T A K E S A S P A R K . O N L Y Y O U C A N P R E V E N T W I L D F I R E S . s m o k e y b e a r . c o m Please By Stephen Ohlemacher The Associated Press WASHINGTON As Social Se- curity approaches its 80th birthday Friday, the federal government's largest bene- fit program stands at a piv- otal point in its history. Relatively modest changes to taxes and ben- efits could still save it for generations of Americans to come, but Congress must act quickly, and even lim- ited changes are politically difficult. The longer lawmakers wait, the harder it will be- come to maintain Social Security as a program that pays for itself, a key fea- ture since President Frank- lin Roosevelt signed the So- cial Security Act on Aug. 14, 1935. "The more time that they take, the less accept- able the changes will be be- cause there needs to be ad- equate time for the public to prepare and to adjust to whatever changes Congress will make," Carolyn Colvin, acting commissioner of the Social Security Administra- tion, said in an interview. Social Security's long- term financial problems are largely a result of de- mographic changes. As baby boomers swell the ranks of retirees, relatively fewer workers are left to pay taxes. In 1960, there were more than five workers for ev- ery person receiving So- cial Security. Today there are fewer than three. In 20 years, there will be about two workers for every per- son getting benefits. "Remember, these are our most vulnerable popu- lation," Colvin said. "These are the elderly who helped to build this country. These are the disabled who cer- tainly did not wish to be- come disabled." The options fall into broad categories: benefit cuts, tax increases or a com- bination of both. None is popular. Nearly 60 million re- tirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get monthly Social Security payments, a number that is projected to grow to 90 mil- lion over the next two de- cades. About 168 million work- ers pay Social Security taxes. Adding to the gridlock, policymakers are moving in opposite directions. Republi- cans are pushing to cut ben- efits while a growing num- ber of Democrats is pulling to expand them. The debate is playing out in Congress and the presidential cam- paign, increasing the like- lihood that Washington will deal with Social Secu- rity the same way it has so many other issues — not un- til it becomes a crisis. For much of the past three decades, Social Se- curity produced big sur- pluses, collecting more in taxes than it paid in bene- fits. Social Security's com- bined trust funds are now valued at $2.8 trillion. The retirement trust fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035. At that point, the program would collect enough pay- roll taxes to pay about 79 percent of benefits, trigger- ing an automatic 21 percent cut. The disability trust fund is projected to run out of re- serves much sooner, in late 2016. If that happens, it would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits. Once the surplus is gone, the gap between scheduled benefits and projected tax revenues starts off big and quickly becomes huge. In the first year, the gap would be $571 billion, according agency data. Over the first decade, the deficit would to- tal more than $7 trillion. Social Security uses a 75- year window to forecast its finances, so the projections cover the life expectancy of every worker paying into the system. Options to address So- cial Security's finances, along with the share of the 75-year shortfall that each one would eliminate: Taxes Social Security is fi- nanced by a 12.4 percent tax on wages. Workers pay half and their employers pay the other half. The tax is ap- plied to the first $118,500 of a worker's wages, a level that increases each year with inflation. Options: • Apply the payroll tax to all wages, including those above $118,500. This option would wipe out 66 percent of the shortfall. • Increase the combined payroll tax rate by 0.1 per- centage point a year, until it reaches 14.4 percent in 20 years. This option would eliminate 49 percent of the shortfall. Retirement age Workers qualify for full retirement benefits at age 66, a threshold that grad- ually rises to 67 for people born in 1960 or later. Work- ers are eligible for early re- tirement at 62, though monthly benefits are re- duced. Options: • Gradually increase the full retirement age until it reaches 68 in 2033. This op- tion would eliminate 15 per- cent of the shortfall. • Raise the early retire- ment age to 64 in 2023, and the full retirement age to 69 in 2027. This option would wipe out 29 percent of the shortfall. COLAs Each year, if consumer prices increase, Social Se- curity benefits go up as well. By law, the increases are pegged to an inflation index. This year, benefits went up by 1.7 percent. Options: • Adopt a new inflation index called the Chained CPI, which assumes that people change their buy- ing habits when prices in- crease to reduce the im- pact on their pocketbooks. The Chained CPI would re- duce the annual COLA by 0.3 percentage point, on av- erage. This option would elimi- nate 19 percent of the short- fall. • Adopt a new measure of inflation that takes into ac- count the higher costs that older people have to pay for health care. This measure, called the CPI for the El- derly, would increase the an- nual COLA by about 0.2 per- centage point, on average. This option would in- crease the shortfall by 13 percent. SOCIAL SECURITY Modest changes could save program THE ASSOCIATED PRESS President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Bill in Washington in 1935. By Stephen Ohlemacher The Associated Press WASHINGTON The 11 mil- lion Americans who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year — right in the middle of a presidential election — unless Congress acts. Social Security's trustees say the disability trust fund will run out of money in late 2016. That would trig- ger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits. There is an easy fix avail- able, but Republicans in Congress are resisting. GOP lawmakers see the funding crisis as an oppor- tunity to improve a program that they believe is plagued by waste and abuse. Demo- crats are much more defen- sive about the program, not- ing that its modest benefits keep millions of disabled workers and their families out of poverty. Lawmakers from both political parties would like to resolve the issue this year, protecting beneficia- ries from steep cuts before presidential politics con- sumes the capital. But a deal remains elusive as So- cial Security approaches its 80th birthday Friday. President Franklin Roo- sevelt signed the Social Se- curity Act on Aug. 14, 1935. The disability program was added in 1956. Some things to know about the disability pro- gram's funding crisis: Benefits are modest The average monthly pay- ment for disabled workers and their families is $1,019. That comes to $12,228 a year. A 19 percent cut would lower the average annual benefit to less than $10,000. How is the disability program financed? Social Security is self-fi- nanced by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to $118,500. Workers pay half and em- ployers pay half. Social Se- curity also gets revenue from taxes on benefits and interest on the program's two trust funds. Last year, the wage tax generated $756 billion. By law, the tax revenue is di- vided between the disabil- ity trust fund and Social Se- curity's much larger retire- ment fund. The retirement fund gets about 85 percent of the money, and the rest goes to disability. Over the past 20 years, the fund balances have got- ten out of whack. The re- tirement fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035, according to the Social Security trustees. But they disability fund is pro- jected to run out of money in fourth quarter of 2016. What's the easy fix? Congress could redirect tax revenue from the retire- ment fund to the disability fund, as it has done in the past. The last time was in 1994. If Congress redirects the tax revenue, the retirement fund would lose one year of solvency, so both the retire- ment program and the dis- ability program would have enough money to pay full benefits until 2034. Why do republicans oppose the fix? Republicans say that simply redirecting the tax revenue would be taking money from retired work- ers to pay disabled workers — robbing one fund to fi- nance another. Also, Republicans say they want changes in the disability program to re- duce fraud and to encour- age disabled workers to re- enter the workforce. What do democrats say? Democrats say they too want to reduce fraud and to encourage disabled work- ers who can work to re-en- ter the workforce. But they accuse Republicans of man- ufacturing a crisis by refus- ing to redirect tax revenue between the trust funds. FACTS AND FIGURES Things to know about Social Security's disability crisis DENTAL HYGIENIST NEEDED PLEASE FAX RESUME TO 530-527-6551 Endsnoring An estimated 80 million people in North America snore. Taking into account the snorer's spouse and children, as many as 160 million people are negatively affected by snoring. Snoring not only interrupts your sleep cycle, it can also be a symptom of a condition called sleep apnea. Fortunately, there are cost-effective oral appliances for snoring and sleep apnea that dentists can prescribe to their patients. Traditional mandibular advancement appliances, such as Silent Night Slide-Link, TAP, EMA, help reduce or eliminate snoring by moving the lower jaw forward, opening the airway to allow air to flow more freely. CALL DR. RANDAL ELLOWAY IF YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM SNORING OR SLEEP APNEA. HE WILL BE GLAD TO DISCUSS YOUR SYMPTOMS. PROVIDE YOU WITH THE OPTIMUM APPLIANCE TO HELP YOU SLEEP PEACEFULLY AND WITH SECURITY. 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