ON THE RIGHT: Well, What Do You Know! - House passes Social Security Earnings Test Elimination - Brief Article

National Review, April 3, 2000 by William F. Buckley, Jr.

NEW YORK, MARCH 3

THE bill in the House passed by a vote of-can you stand the suspense? - 422-0. This is the bill, sponsored most prominently (in the senior body) by Sen. Chuck Grassley, called the Social Security Earnings Test Elimination Act. If passed also by the Senate, the act will eliminate the surcharge on Amer icans who choose to work from age 65-69. As things now stand, for every $3 over $17,000 earned by a worker in that age group, $1 in Social Security income is forfeited.

Now what is interesting is not that the bill has passed unanimously in the House. It is that we are talking about a measure originally passed during the Depression. The Depression was 70 years ago. Question: Why did it require 70 years to amend a provision so lousy that reform brought unanimity yesterday? If it was so obvious that the measure was wrong and discriminatory, why wasn't a bill introduced to remedy the situation a year ago? Ten years ago? Fifty years ago?

The "reason" for introducing it in the first instance is that the design, in those bad days, was to get people out of the labor market on the grounds that, with unemployment up around 25 percent, a reduction in the jobless figure by any means was desirable. The satisfying way to reduce unemployment is for people to get jobs. But the New Deal fancied illusory cuts to desirable ends: Get people who are 65 to stop working, so they can give their jobs to younger people who are not working-a circular but statistically satisfactory way of reducing the number of jobless.

Sen. Grassley now uses mostly utilitarian arguments for his reform: 1) There isn't any serious unemployment. 2) To punish people at age 65-69 is to deprive the United States of many skilled workers. 3) Enhanced longevity brings a different perspective on work at ages 65-69. It might once have been thought cruel to expect people of that age to work. Today the problem is different. It is to keep avenues open for the elderly who choose to work.

Now all those fine utilitarian arguments are convincing, but one commentator last week cut through the whole question by citing an epiphany. Suddenly it had occurred to the legislators that to punish older people was-unfair!

If the legislators are going to come on to the question of fair/unfair, they can have a very long and productive run. The dominant abuse is, of course, the question of the income tax. Is it fair to tax some people at nothing, others at 39.6 percent? Obviously those whose standard of living is very low are legitimate beneficiaries of one or another form of negative income tax. But no light is shed on why a society should choose to levy double the tax on one level of earners over against another. The flat tax so vigorously promoted by Steve Forbes is quietly championed by others, but doesn't arrive at the level of, say, gay rights. The utilitarian defense of steep progressive taxes is queasily made, because high exposure to high taxes brings convoluted stratagems of self- protection, which diminish capital flexibility and encourage dissipation of resources and even expatriation.

It is by no means inconceivable that the burgeoning paradox between the Fourteenth and Sixteenth Amendments will one day gestate into public view. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal treatment under the law. The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes unequal treatment under the law.

In high presidential season it would be fine to invite philosophical examination of the question. If you agree that there should be no penalty against 65-year-olds, why should there be a penalty against millionaires?

That is a provocative formulation. It is fine to tax the millionaire proportionately. To tax him disproportionately is abusive government activity. Candidates who decline to get on the justice bandwagon could at least tell us why it took Congress 70 years to move in with a reform, which, when they studied it, they recognized as so manifestly desirable they voted for it unanimously.