Welfare for the Rockefellers?

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at windmills - Brief article

Forty-two years ago, this magazine ran the first of many articles and Tilting items urging that Social Security be means tested. In 1985, Robert Kuttner and I debated this issue--I was for, he was against--in Mother Jones and at Harvard's Institute of Politics. I had to concede that in terms of persuading people, he won, so over the years I argued the case less and less because it seemed so futile. The only reforms came in 1983, when Congress began to include the proceeds of Social Security in the total income subject to taxation, and in 1993, when the tax was increased under Bill Clinton. And even those successes were diminished as the tax code became less progressive.

Now there seems to be at last a ray of hope, as others are seeing the need for means...