Presidency by Hugh Sidey: Assaulted from All Sides

Yet the Social Security reform plan may get through Congress

When Republican Senator Robert Dole of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, introduces a bill entitled S.1 this week, he will be the first of a phalanx of blockers trying to mow down obstacles to congressional approval of a $168 billion Social Security compromise package. With the bipartisan blessings of President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, the National Commission on Social Security Reform hammered together the agreement hours short of its Jan. 15 deadline. The commission's success, after months of deadlock, may have saved the entire Social Security issue from becoming fatally ensnared in a ferocious wrangle on Capitol Hill. Even so, predicts Republican Congressman Barber Conable of New York, one of the so-called Gang of Five that helped produce the 15-member commission's compromise agreement: "The package will be assaulted from all sides."

First to spring was the Fund for Assuring an Independent Retirement (FAIR), a powerful coalition of about 6 million active and retired civil servants. Barely had the commission's final report appeared, when FAIR began mounting a $3 million lobbying and public relations campaign against a proposed requirement that newly hired federal employees participate in the system. FAIR charges that the switch would bankrupt the healthy $96 billion civil service retirement fund, saddle Congress with $185 billion in future uncovered pension obligations, and deprive the Government of $2 billion in taxes now paid on their benefits by federal retirees.

The 14 million-member American Association of Retired Persons (A.A.R.P.) vehemently denounced provisions requiring a six-month delay in cost of living adjustments (COLA) for benefits and accelerating payroll tax hikes through 1990. A.A.R.P. is especially outraged by a requirement that, starting in 1984, will impose taxes on half of the benefits of individuals with annual incomes above $20,000 and couples above $25,000.

By contrast, the 4 million-member National Council of Senior Citizens and the 5,000-member National Council on the Aging, while objecting to the COLA delay, were relieved that the basic principles of Social Security had been preserved. Said one senior-citizen spokesman: "When you get legislators and White House leaders recognizing the kind of commitments the Government has made under Social Security, you don't want to upset that."

The Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.), which represents custodial and building-service workers, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (A.F.S.C.M.E.) cheered provisions that 1) require Social Security coverage for nonprofit organizations, which may now elect not to participate, and 2) ban the withdrawal of state and local government employees from the system. These unions maintain that their memberships are better served by Social Security than by private pension plans.