A Plan to Avoid THE LOOMING CRISIS.

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In the 1960s, news anchor Walter Cronkite shocked TV audiences by showing elderly Americans eating dog and cat food because they could not afford a regular diet. Eventually, Social Security payments were raised above the absolute poverty level. In the future, TV news may instead show young working Americans and their offspring eating pet food, according to Stanford (Calif.) University economists. However, the more likely scenario is that many of today's children will forgo having kids they can't properly care for.

"If the Social Security tax burden gets so high that we are taking food off the table of our children, you could end up with a society that implodes .... People can't afford to get married and have kids," warns Sylvester Schieber, co-author with economics professor John Shoven of The Real Deal a book on the history and future of America's Social Security program.

"I think the crisis will hit us between 2010 and 2019" indicates Shoven, who directs the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He rejects 2037, the latest official date of insolvency forecast by the Social Security Administration. Among other things, he argues, the government report is too optimistic because it underestimates by at least a year the average increase in life span of baby boomers. When Social Security financing reaches a crisis state, the likely reaction will be a significant hike in payroll taxes.

"Young people don't have any faith in the Social Security system, and they are right, as it stands," Shoven points out. "But at some juncture, I hope parents will begin to look at the situation and say, `We don't want to do this to our kids.'"

He holds out the hope that, as Americans become more concerned and knowledgeable, they will force the issue onto the agenda, in the way that tax reform gradually built momentum before the 1986 legislation. More likely, he concedes, will be a situation like the savings and loan crisis, but on a larger scale. "They...