
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 19, 1993                   TAG: 9305190612
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T BLAME THE `GRAMP' GENERATION

ROB NELSON and Jon Cowan (May 7 commentary, "Myths of Social Security") are two of the most articulate of what seems to be a large and growing population of cry babies, including your editorial staff, who have a mild obsession about the elderly and disabled. One would conclude that ex-middle-class grandparents are living in sin unless they are slightly undernourished and housed in hovels. Their commentary is a mixture of a few facts twisted into hyperbole and infused with self-pity. They find poor old grandpas and grandmas to blame for what they perceive as deprivation in their generation. Pardon me for not weeping.

And they would have us believe that the whole obscene mess of federal funding could be fixed by gramps doing without a few amenities.

I was old enough in the '30s to fully understand that the Social Security idea, which originated in Germany under Bismarck, was a pact between generations, not a personal pension-fund annuity. Whatever has been said to the contrary by irresponsible politicians won't wash. The evidence has been there for anyone to see, even in this country, for six decades.

Much of the misperception about Social Security and the federal budget started when the fund was put into the general budget. Anyone who looks at a paycheck stub and reads the papers knows the contributions to FICA are shown separately from federal income-tax contributions. Yet, when the money reaches Washington, it goes into the same hole. (I'm aware of sleight-of-hand accounting that tries to obscure this fact.)

We hate paying taxes because most of our money has been wasted on wrong wars and ridiculously expensive weapons, plus the interest on the money borrowed to pay for them.

It's easy to not give credit where credit is due when one is engrossed in self-pity. The present gramp generation built the modern U.S. industrial state. Do our grandchildren expect us not to participate, even modestly through Social Security, in its wealth? Yes, wealth. The big debt doesn't mean the country is not wealthy.

There should be changes, but only after a comprehensive overhaul of all federal spending and taxing is presented to us by leaders we can trust, and who have the courage and intelligence to see it through.

Focusing so intensely on cutting Social Security alone will be counter-productive. Editorial rhetoric, however suave, will not likely persuade us. I'm keeping my American Association of Retired Persons membership, thank you. ROBERT WOODDALL SALEM

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