BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
President William Clinton has openly signaled his support for reaching a bipartisan deal in Congress to slash the cost- of-living adjustments that are a component of Social Security and other entitlements. Such a move would be an opening wedge in the assault by the U.S. rulers on Social Security itself, which working people regard as a basic social right for all.

On March 3, the White House responded favorably to a proposal by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott for a commission of "experts" to make a binding recommendation to "fix" the cost-of-living adjustment.

Senate Democratic leader Thomas Daschle endorsed the scheme, as did Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve bank. Republican House speaker Newton Gingrich, on the other hand, expressed caution about being associated with such a potentially explosive political issue. Gingrich was burned by his identification with the failed "Republican Revolution" of 1994, an attempt to push through sharp attacks on social entitlements.

White House officials said the administration was looking for a commission with "credibility." This means a panel of economists whose proposals would not "appear rigged to find budget savings at the expense of benefit recipients," as a New York Times report put it.

A similar proposal was floated earlier by Michael Boskin, who headed a Congressional panel that issued a report last December asserting the Consumer Price Index (CPI) exaggerated the rise in the cost of living by 1.1 percent. The index rose 3.3 percent last year. Revising the CPI, the basis for cost-of-living adjustments, by that amount would slash tens of billions of dollars from social benefits.

A group of conservative House Democrats has already proposed cutting the CPI by 0.8 percent as a way to chip away at spending on entitlements.

The CPI, fixed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, supposedly measures inflation by tracking the prices of an average "market basket" of food and other basic consumer goods and services purchased by working people and others. While many working people have felt the squeeze of rising bills and stagnating wages, some big-business politicians argue that the "improved quality" of products justifies lowering the CPI.

A 1.1 percent cut in the cost-of-living adjustment would mean $8 a month less in the average Social Security payments this year, but by 2002 the benefits would be $57 lower than currently projected. The Congressional Budget Office estimated such a move would cut $195 billion from federal spending over the next five years.

While working people won Social Security and other entitlements through the labor struggles of the 1930s, the cost-of-living adjustment was part of a later series of extensions of workers' social wage. In the wake of the mass civil rights battles of the 1950s and 1960s, Congress passed a law in 1972 that pegged a number of social benefits to the CPI. Among the payments that increase automatically based on the CPI are Social Security, veterans' pensions, disability payments, federal employees' pensions, food stamps, as well as pay raises in many union contracts.

While conducting this probe against cost-of-living adjustments, Congress defeated a constitutional amendment to require the federal budget be "balanced." The Senate failed to pass the measure - requiring a two-thirds majority - by one vote, as it did two years ago.

In the tactical dispute among big-business forces over how far and how fast to press the assault on entitlements, Clinton has opposed the balanced budget amendment, posturing as a defender of Social Security. Instead, he has made his own proposals for slashing Medicare payments by $138 billion over six years.

Parallel with their drive against the social wage, the U.S. rulers continue to put pressure on other social and democratic gains of working people. Bipartisan forces in Congress have renewed their effort to pass a measure that would curtail a woman's right to abortion. Bills are being introduced in both the House and Senate to ban what antichoice forces falsely call "partial-birth abortions."

If passed, the measure would prohibit a type of late-term abortion known as intact dilation and extraction. Last year, both houses passed the ban but the Senate failed to override a presidential veto.

Clinton has said he is prepared to sign the bill if it contains an exception for women who need the operation for health reasons.

Opponents of women's rights have tried to take advantage of recent statements by Ron Fitzsimmons, head of a lobbying group based in Alexandria, Virginia, that represents 200 abortion clinics. The lobbyist stated he had "lied" in 1995 when he said the procedure was used very rarely and only in cases where the mother's life was in danger or because of fetal abnormalities.

Pro-choice forces point out that banning the medical procedure would deny women one of the safest methods for ending pregnancies, and that such a prohibition would open the door to further inroads on the right to abortion.

Democratic senator Daniel Moynihan, who portrays himself as pro-choice, voted to impose the ban and called on Clinton to sign it. "I think this bill will pass and will be signed," he said. Malcolm Forbes Jr., former Republican presidential contender, plans to air radio ads urging the president to sign the ban.

Meanwhile, the campaign financing scandal is swirling a few RPMs faster around the Clinton White House, with new accusations splattering Vice President Albert Gore. The latest controversy was fueled by a detailed report in the March 2 Washington Post describing Gore as the "solicitor-in- chief" for the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 campaign.

At a press conference the next day, Gore admitted he had made telephone calls to campaign contributors from his White House office, but evaded questions about their propriety. He said he had done nothing wrong and that he wouldn't do it again. At a March 4 White House event where he asked for a voluntary ban on human cloning experiments, Clinton stood next to his vice president and defended him.

Conservative and right-wing forces have continued to raise the shrillness of the debate. Gingrich, who himself was reprimanded by Congress in January over improper use of tax-exempt funds, called the Democratic fund raising a scandal bigger than Watergate. Republican leader Lott said he would introduce a Senate resolution calling for an "independent counsel" to investigate the Clinton-Gore fund- raising, especially Gore's calls from the White House.  
 
 
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