Buck Passing on Social Security

A bipartisan unit finds the issue laced with political arsenic

A deal has been just about worked out. It could produce the $150 billion to $200 billion that the Social Security system needs to make sure that it can continue mailing checks on time to 36 million Americans through the 1980s. But, unfortunately, whether or not the deal will ever actually be struck has turned into a cliff-hanging suspense story.

Reason: the plan that is acceptable to most of the 15 members of the National Commission on Social Security Reform contains political arsenic in the form of hefty tax increases on young and middle-aged workers, combined with limits on the future benefits to be paid to aged pensioners. The commission does not want to recommend such politically unpalatable steps unless it can get some signal from President Reagan and Tip O'Neill, Speaker of the Democratic-controlled House, that they will support the findings. Commission Member William Armstrong, a Republican Senator from Colorado, explains: "If we come up with a solution that is not precleared with at least those two figures ... it will just get shot down about five minutes after we announce it."

But Reagan and O'Neill are playing coy. The President, who bridles at talk of tax increases, last week rejected a taunting suggestion from Kansas Republican Senator Robert Dole, another commission member, that Reagan is "frightened to death about Social Security." Still, Reagan declared, "We are waiting for the commission to come back and tell us, could they agree on a plan." O'Neill, who is loath to consider a limit on benefits, nonetheless has said that he will go along with one if the commission's Democrats* endorse it. But he too takes the position that the commission must issue recommendations on its own.

As a result, the commission is uncertain as to whether it will even meet again. Chairman Alan Greenspan, a Republican economist, had scheduled what was supposed to be the commission's final meeting for last Friday, but postponed it while he continued to negotiate with White House Chief of Staff James Baker. If Greenspan can get the Administration's imprimatur, and if O'Neill gives some kind of tacit nod, the panel can quickly reassemble and fashion a consensus plan.

If not, the commission, which must report by Dec. 31, will probably issue conflicting recommendations. Its Republicans will demand that Social Security's problems be solved primarily by limiting benefits; its Democrats will insist that tax increases be the principal solution. That in turn could set the stage for a chaotic battle in Congress next year, since the main Social Security trust fund will be unable to send out pension checks on time by next July. The day of reckoning can be put off by extending the fund's authority to borrow from the separate Medicare and disability trust funds, but then all three are likely to go broke together in 1984.

The real pity of a continuing deadlock would be that a sound proposal is so near.