Penetrating social security.(on the right)(Column)

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 17

IT becomes clearer, day by day, that the talk about reforming Social Security is an ideological debate. The New York Times's summary on December 17 is useful: "Away from the conference [called by President Bush during the week], some opponents of Mr. Bush's approach, mostly liberals who want to preserve the current Social Security program, said in interviews that the administration was exaggerating the scale of the problem to create an air of crisis that justified radical but unnecessary changes like creating private investment accounts."

The federal Social Security program was the crowning intervention of the New Deal. It has always depended heavily on illusions. The first of these was that money paid in to Social Security was actually being sequestered someplace, subject to convenient materialization when contributors reached senior age. A second illusion was that the program was designed for those who would otherwise be in need. A third was that money paid out would correspond in some way with money paid in, and that the age at which payments would be activated would coincide in some way with the age at which physical decrepitude set in.

What happened, of course, is that Social Security became a general welfare program. Year after year, politicians proclaimed it untouchable. In fact it has been modified over a dozen times.

What the current fight does is give us another theatrical setting for the ideological dispute. Begin at right-wing position A: There shouldn't be a federal Social Security program. People should look after their own needs, making arrangements with family, with employers, and with private insurance companies.

Left-wing position Z: Americans who reach a certain age should not be concerned about income. Ours is a welfare society, and what welfare is better earned, or more keenly needed, than old-age assistance?

Conservative critics pursue their long war of attrition. It begins with the question: When should a recipient be entitled to receive money? On this point the conservatives can hold the floor triumphant, because history unmistakably affirms that it was contemplated by the framers of the program that payments should begin at about the age at which Americans begin to die, which Americans used to do ...