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

DATE: THURSDAY, September 30, 1993                   TAG: 9309300130
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SOCIAL SECURITY NOMINEE WANTS TO BUILD PUBLIC'S TRUST IN AGENCY

Shirley Sears Chater breezed through her confirmation hearing to head the troubled Social Security Administration on Wednesday, telling a Senate Committee that "a distinct and disturbing lack of public confidence" in the system must be overcome.

Nominated by President Clinton this month to head the vast agency headquartered in Woodlawn, Md., she said, "We must work to turn public opinion around before eroding public confidence in Social Security is transformed into popular support for measures that could diminish the system's effectiveness and endanger the financial security of millions of Americans."

Chater's failure to pay Social Security taxes for a part-time baby sitter in the early 1970s was barely mentioned. The committee chairman, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., alluded to it briefly in his opening statement, but she was asked no questions and, beyond a letter submitted to the committee, offered no information.

Chater, 61, president of Texas Women's University in Denton, Texas, said in the letter that she and her husband paid the Social Security taxes in July that should have been paid for a part-time babysitter from 1969 to 1975. She did not say what the amount was, and a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services later said both the back taxes and a penalty she paid were "minimal."

When the baby-sitter was hired full-time in 1975, Chater said she and her husband began to pay taxes.

Moynihan said he expected the committee to approve Chater's nomination today and to have a Senate vote next week. There were no indications of opposition.

by CNB