Bentsen Urges Faster Rise in Benefits Age : Social Security: Treasury secretary says people live longer, so threshold should climb. He says it would save money in a burgeoning entitlement program.

Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen said Sunday that he believes the Clinton Administration should consider accelerating the timetable for raising the age at which Americans begin receiving Social Security benefits.

“I think that’s one of the things that we should look (at) as people live longer and longer and are more productive,” Bentsen said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.”

But Bentsen said the Administration is not now willing to consider two other ideas for reducing spending in the huge federal retirement program: limits on cost-of-living adjustments and increased taxes on high-income recipients.

Bentsen’s comments reflect growing congressional pressure to restrain entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which have become the biggest contributors to the record federal deficits of recent years. President Clinton has appointed a commission chaired by Sens. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) and John C. Danforth (R-Mo.) to recommend reforms in entitlement programs by March.

Congress last raised the Social Security retirement age in 1983. But the planned increase is a modest one: In the year 2000, the retirement age for receiving full benefits, now 65, is scheduled to begin gradually rising to 67 by 2022.

Increasing the retirement age more quickly could provide significant savings over the long run, which has made the idea a favorite among congressional deficit hawks such as Rep. Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.).

Former Sens. Paul E. Tsongas (D-Mass.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) included a proposal to raise the retirement age to 68 by 2006 as part of their Concord Coalition plan to balance the federal budget.

In an analysis last year, Robert J. Shapiro, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank with ties to Clinton, calculated that raising the retirement age to 67 by 2008 could save $60 billion over the next two decades.

Shapiro and like-minded analysts maintain that raising the retirement age would only keep pace with the increase in life span that Americans have experienced since Social Security was created in the 1930s.

In November, Shirley Sears Chater, the new Social Security commissioner, said that lengthening life spans could endanger the system’s solvency if the retirement age is not increased.

Supporters of a hike in the retirement age also say it would be more equitable than reducing cost-of-living adjustments, another frequently mentioned option for restraining entitlement growth.

“An acceleration of the scheduled increase in the retirement age genuinely spreads the sacrifice to everyone,” Shapiro said Sunday.

On the NBC program, Bentsen ruled out reductions in cost-of-living increases for entitlement recipients, saying such cuts are “not at this point” under consideration. He also resisted calls for greater “means-testing” of Social Security and other entitlement programs, under which benefits for upper-income recipients would be reduced.

In the budget approved last summer, the Administration pushed through an increase in the taxation of Social Security benefits paid to more-affluent senior citizens. Bentsen said no additional means-testing was planned: “Insofar as the foreseeable future, we think we have done . . . what should have been done by subjecting 85% of (the benefits) to tax.”

On other issues, Bentsen threw cold water on suggestions from Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich that a planned expansion of federal job-training efforts might be funded with a new payroll tax.

“I don’t see that happening next year,” Bentsen said.

He also joined in the Administration drumbeat over the last several weeks for follow-up measures to the five-day waiting period on handgun purchases.

Bentsen, who supervises the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said: “I think what you’re going to have to see is a substantial increase in the cost of licensing gun dealers and further limitations . . . and tighter controls over them.”

Bentsen also said he might support “some raising of (the) tax” on certain types of especially deadly ammunition, as suggested by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). But he indicated that he considered banning such ammunition preferable to raising its cost.

He said the ATF would be presenting him “in the very near future” recommendations on whether to require registration and licensing for gun owners. In early December, Clinton told The Times that he believes “we ought to look at some sort of standards for (gun) ownership just the way every state does with automobiles.”