European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 18, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes May 1985 columns George will increasingly irritable French watch socialism Thunder Paris the who politicize everything from Industry to suddenly Are having a lot of and socialism May be to polls show that since 1981 the percentage of people who say they Are increasingly irritable has risen from 26 to 42 per the prevalence of backaches has increased sub As has the number of people who say they exp Echo be in an automobile a decline in the nations sense of Well being has coincided with the floundering of the first socialist government under the fifth four years ago this France elected Francois Mitterrand president and embarked on a historic Jour Ney in Europe a journey to the end of the who once criticized swe Dens socialists for not dealing capitalism a mortal has dealt one to in the 1981 he promised stimulative spending through expanded a Shorter work week with no Cut in Job creation through Public works steeper taxes on the sweeping nationalization of Many industries and and an attack on the Independence of Catholic then he rounded on the country and began keeping his because France listens intently to it often is late learning the it has now Learned that much of the Money pumped into the pockets of people who Are working less was spent on so while productivity demand Rose and the franc unemployment the purchasing Power of the employed and so did Mitterrand in the to a Point lower than any postwar his biggest Blunder was a Bill to break Cath Olic schools to the states the Bill embodied traditional socialist thinking about conquering reactionary tendencies by nationalizing and i Brating children from the dead hand of the including this brought a million protesters into Paris streets in the largest demonstration since Mitterrand promised radicalism and in two years he has delivered perhaps the most Radical reversal in recent european imposing budgetary austerity More severe than Reagan has candidate Mitter Rand lets break with the logic of prof Tabili and under his policies Many president Mitterrand now we can no longer keep on crushing those who create wealth in France with taxes and social he insists his conversion to tax cuts and spending restraints is just a parenthesis in the Story of French social but the parenthesis was preceded by failure so com plete that the intellectual cupboard is Barren of ideas about what can come next that will resemble his Semir paganism has been called Supply Side but that is an the Crux of suppl Side economics is tax cutting to lighten the Tom Wicker weight of the state on and the essence of socialism is the use of the state As the Central direct ing socialism just Means a mixed if France has had socialism since Mitterrand pre discard warned that when the combination of taxes and social Security contributions exceeds 40 were in if socialism arrived under when the combination neared 43 France has More politics than probably is Good for with municipal 2 percent of the electorate is in elective but what unquestionably is Good about French politics today is that the political Label with cachet is Here liberalism retains its traditional which Are unlike those of american Here it Means an anti statist emphasis on personal initiative and Market Mitterrand personal initiative has been a hyperactive foreign searching for what some european envious of Margaret Call a falklands but the principal effect of fore Iii events during the last decade has been to Speed the collapse of Confidence among French intellectuals on the who have abominable records of communist affiliation or fellow Only intellectuals inordinately fond of abstractions like the three great Equality would take until 1975 to learn from a of course which had its strongest Impact Here about the Concrete reality of the also instructive were Vietnam boat cambodian Afghanistan atrocities and the suppression of a nation about which France has Long been today French writing with the vigor of people making up for lost Are robustly anticommunist on their flight toward the one Fine Day in the front Page of the communist newspaper a humanity had a Black Border and this headline dreadful news Stalin is one Fine Day a headline May say c 1985 Washington Post writers group win simply in a starter How for1he Swamy Reagan right and wrong on social Security funds a f to social Security is running a social Security is not part of the deficit it is totally financed by a payroll tax totally dedicated to that one if social Security spending were reduced you could not take that Money saved and use it to fund some other president at his news conference yet the Senate has and Reagan has a oneyear abstention from costo living increases for so Cial Security this they will reduce the Federal budget deficit by billion in fiscal 1986 and about billion Over three so whats going on Here the answer is that Reagan was both right and wrong in his news conference statement right that social Security taxes Are earmarked for social Security Bene fits and cannot be spent for anything but wrong that social Security is not part of the deficit problem particular deficit that that the Senate was trying to the figure of for instance said to be the impending 1986 deficit if nothing is done to reduce it is for the unified Federal its not Well understood that the unified Bud in use since the Johnson comprises All earmarked As Well As general tax revenues and All whether covered by earmarked revenues or that includes both social Security income and outgo the former larger than the producing a but social Security Benefit payments still add to the spending total in the Catchall unified budget if those benefits Are reduced by billion in fiscal that spending total is reduced hence the unified budget deficit also is reduced by billion assuming that other expenditures have not been its True that the billion cannot be spent for any other the social Security Trust fund surplus will be increased by that much but the surplus is Lent to the Treasury for general reducing the Treasury need to borrow in the credit the Treasury repays the Trust fund with specially issued securities paying Market rates of but the government is paying that interest to which has no Impact on its total contrary to reagans As total social Security outlays have they have had the effect of increasing the unified budgets spending hence its and the Senate if it survives in the will have the effect of reducing that deficit even though the social Security Trust fund is itself in the importance of the unified deficit which May be seems to me primarily pay the unified budget deficit does not take into account that earmarked revenues More than cover so Cial Security expenditures or that the real Federal Defi Cit shortfall of no earmarked revenues against expenditures having no dedicated Revenue under the unified budget the oneyear freeze on costo living benefits will not reduce this real deficit but Only what people including Tormen businessmen usually think of As the the effect is if costo living increases Are not paid in the existing to which such increases Are will be that much lower when a u8 Are resumed in 1987 and the lowered base will be that Why Alan the chairman of the that de san r soap Security reforms of could say that in fiscal 1984 the savings effect of those reforms f by is about million and it accelerates to a level of billion in fiscal j in 1983 was the remo i Cal 3l of Sodal from the unified r u to the Independent status it had before that would be More honest All around in presenting an accurate picture of social Security financial status and of the real Federal deficit and in Benefit not on the basis of Nunt s overal1 financial and political but on the objectives and solvency of the program 0 1985 View York times Syndicate