(CBS/AP) Social Security and Medicare trustees say the financial condition of the government's two biggest benefit programs deteriorated slightly over the past year.

That assessment on Monday prompted Democrats and Republicans to hurl familiar charges at each other in a repeat of last year's pitched battle over what to do about Social Security.

Democrats accused the Bush administration of overstating the problems in the two programs as a way of getting Congress to enact draconian benefit cuts, while Republicans said Democrats were refusing to face serious funding shortfalls.

Given the tough talk on both sides, there was little likelihood that Congress will make significant changes in either program before the November elections. Some analysts said they don't expect major changes before the election of President Bush's successor.

The annual trustees' report moved up the date that the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by one year to 2040 and moved up the date that the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund will be depleted by two years to 2018.

The problems in Medicare were depicted as far more serious because of the skyrocketing costs of health care, but the trustees presented a somber assessment of both programs facing the looming retirement of 78 million baby boomers.

The trustees, who include the head of the Social Security Administration and three members of the Cabinet, said long-term growth rates for both programs were not "sustainable under current financing arrangements."

Treasury Secretary John Snow, chairman of the trustees group, said without action "the coming demographic bulge will drive federal spending to unprecedented levels."

Mr. Bush tried last year to revamp Social Security by suggesting private investment accounts for younger workers, but the idea stalled in Congress, with Democrats blasting the proposal as a hidden attempt to cut future benefits.

Critics on Monday said Snow was overstating the size of the problem and suggested that the problem could be addressed by refusing to go along with the president's call to make his first-term tax cuts permanent.

"The assumptions are way out of whack," scoffs retirement savings expert Merton Bernstein. "Those projections are no better than the assumptions that underlie them. And the assumptions have been grossly understating the productivity of the economy."

Bernstein, who served as the principal consultant to the National Commission on Social Security Reform and is the author of "Social Security: The System that Works," told CBS Radio News that Social Security is a bright spot in the retirement picture.

"The most secure part of it is Social Security. If you want something to worry about, take a look at what is happening to the unraveling of private pensions plans," he said.

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