BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
The White House has launched a campaign to win greater public acceptance for making inroads into Social Security - all in the name of "fixing" it. Some 44 million people, overwhelmingly workers and farmers, depend on this entitlement today.

President William Clinton staged the first road show on this subject April 7 at a community college in Kansas City, Missouri. The "town hall" meeting, attended by 750 people selected by the liberal American Association of Retired Persons and the Concord Coalition, an advocate of budget reductions, was one of four such events to be emceed by Clinton or Vice President Albert Gore. They are billed as a prelude to a White House conference on Social Security in December and bipartisan negotiations with congressional leaders early next year.

In the forum, Clinton argued that funds for this entitlement will run out by the year 2029. Like other politicians in the bipartisan debate on curbing Social Security, he cited higher life expectancy and the greater number of people who will retire in the coming decades as the problem.

Declining to advocate specific proposals to cut Social Security right now, Clinton said his goal was to launch a "period of educating the whole electorate." Marilyn Moon, one of the administration officials who oversee the Social Security system, complained that "people have strong opinions" about this social program but that "there's a lot of misunderstanding," that is, opposition to cutting it.

While advocating "universality and fairness," Clinton did suggest some proposals that would undermine Social Security as a universal entitlement. "I believe that those of us who have higher incomes should pay more in Social Security," the president argued. He presented such a measure as an alternative to those who call for raising the 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax, which is split between workers and employers.

Clinton said he opposed the wholesale dismantling of Social Security by "privatization" - individual private savings schemes that would be the responsibility of workers rather than a nationwide entitlement backed up by the federal government - as advocated by some capitalist politicians. Instead, he expressed support for "allowing" voluntary individual retirement savings accounts along with the Social Security system.

The White House has also advocated raising the retirement age, which is currently 65 and is scheduled to rise to 67 by 2022.

The Social Security debate in capitalist circles has shifted in recent years more to "privatization." Republican senator Richard Santorum, for example, who joined Clinton at the Kansas City meeting, advocates a scheme to allow individuals to invest 5 percent - nearly half - of their 12.4 percent Social Security tax in the stock market or elsewhere. Liberal Democratic senator Daniel Moynihan calls for a cut of up to 30 percent in future Social Security benefits by reducing payroll taxes and promoting individual retirement accounts. Alternately, his proposal would let workers get an increase in take-home pay instead of paying Social Security taxes. Moynihan also proposes raising the retirement age in stages to 70.

Other proposals include cutting back cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits. This gain was won in the 1960s as a result of massive social struggles by working people, particularly Blacks fighting for civil rights. Social Security and other entitlements were won through the wave of labor struggles of the 1930s.  
 
 
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