ROBIN HOOD IN REVERSE

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Every time I see a cook flipping burgers or a cleaning woman emptying the trash baskets, I wonder if I can resist the temptation to rob them.

Nobody would stop me. In fact, the government wants me to do it.

How? Just quit working. I'm nearly 66 and retired, but I earn too much now as a writer to qualify for a Social Security pension. If I were to loaf full time, however, I could collect about $15,000 a year.

I don't need or even want it. A company pension, plus income from savings and investments, should keep me and my wife in comfort for however long we live. But even if I resist the temptation until 2001, I can then expect a letter urging me to apply for a Social Security pension. After age 70, there are no more restrictions: I'll be entitled to Social Security checks even if I'm still working.

Officially, I've earned them by paying Social Security taxes for 44-plus years. Balderdash. Those taxes wouldn't defray my pension for more than a few years--and they've already been used to pay the pensions of those who retired years and years ago. My pension, in fact, will be paid by people still on the job.

That points up one of the great inequities purposely ignored in the recent budget agreement. The working poor continue to pay far more than their fair share of the Social Security tax. That tax is levied--at a current rate of 6.2%--on only the first $65,400 of income, so those who earn more pay much less than 6.2% of their total earnings. The working poor pay the full 6.2% on every cent of their meager wages. And this is a merciless tax--no exemptions, no deductions, no credits. (One exception in the new tax bill: the working poor will get the $500-a-child credit. Big deal.) Taxing the poor to give to the rich throws Robin Hood into reverse.

That should be a problem for the nation's conscience as well as mine. Government programs are shot through with benefits for those who don't need them. Yet any proposal to institute a means test is either ignored or howled down. Example: Medicare premiums are the same for me as for someone with a fraction of my income. But the Senate's proposal to make affluent seniors pay more was dropped from the tax bill, largely because House Republicans feared a savage attack from Democrats.

Why is this? One excuse is that the well off and the middle class must be bribed to allow the government to do anything for the poor. For instance, they will not support subsidized school lunches for poor kids unless their own children also get cheap food. But the real reason is that everyone who gets a government benefit comes to regard it as a sacred right that must never be taken away. Or reduced. Or even increased less rapidly. Witness the screaming after a panel of economists suggested the consumer price index overstates inflation. Why? Adjusting the index would lead to smaller future increases in benefits (including Social Security) tied to the CPI. Monstrous! To the barricades!

Benefits thus must go on increasing, needed or not, even if they drive the programs paying the benefits (Social Security, Medicare) toward bnkruptcy. Moreover, there is not the slightest sign this mind-set will change. So maybe I should collect that pension after all. It's robbery, and I know it. But why should I be the only sap who spurns a share of the loot?