PERSPECTIVE ON THE GOP ‘CONTRACT’ : Save Our National Community : For 60 years, presidents of both parties have equated social security with national security, a precept worth salvaging.

The “contract with America” constitutes a massive effort to break up the national community we have developed over the past 60 years.

The House Speaker dramatically underlined this objective when he said, referring to the major social programs the national community has undertaken:

“They are a disaster. They ruin the poor. They create a culture of poverty and a culture of violence which is destructive to this civilization, and they have to be thoroughly replaced from the ground up. We need to simply reach out, erase the slate and start over.”

When I was a reporter in 1933 and 1934 for what was the predecessor to U.S. News and World Report, I had a front-row seat observing Franklin Roosevelt challenge the national community to pool the resources of the public and private sectors to help one another deal with the hazards and vicissitudes of life. He believed that the national community should place the concept of “social security” alongside “national security.”

I saw the national community, for the six years I served under President Roosevelt as a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, respond to his challenge by authorizing the executive branch to launch 10 programs under the umbrella of Social Security. These included social insurance for retirees, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, aid to the aged, blind and disabled, unemployment compensation, public health and vocational rehabilitation.

I have seen administrations and Congresses since then reaffirm the social role of the national community in partnership with state and local communities.

As a member of President Eisenhower’s Cabinet for both terms, I participated in developments that illustrate his commitment to strengthening the national community: the creation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the strengthening of Social Security, the addition of the disabled to our social-insurance programs and the adoption of the National Defense Education Act.

I’ve had the opportunity of working with all subsequent presidents up to the 1980s; all have contributed to strengthening the national community. President Clinton has been, and is, making a vigorous contribution to the same objective. The drive for universal coverage of all types of health care is one example.

Never in all these years had I witnessed a national political party deliberately develop an agenda such as the “contract with America” with an avowed purpose of weakening the role of the national community.

The current leaders of Congress propose to take funds away from social insurance, particularly Medicare. In so doing, they are proposing not a new “contract with America” but to break a contract that has existed for many years.

They also propose to establish block grants for existing programs for the middle class, the poor and those who suffer, which over a period of five years will provide fewer qualified persons with federal funds. Likewise, they would eliminate many standards designed to ensure quality of services.

Millions of our people are living below the poverty line. Millions more will join them if the proposals made by the leaders of Congress are adopted. Under our system of partnership between local, state and national communities, we cannot weaken the national community without weakening state and local communities. Many states will not replace lost federal funds.

We can, and should, travel another road. We are the richest nation in the world. All of our economic studies reveal that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. We can, and should, reverse that trend. We can adjust our tax code: We can raise the top rates for individuals and corporations, eliminate some of the significant corporate tax loopholes and raise new funds over five years for national community programs. This can be combined with cost savings growing out of constructive reductions in the programs of the national community resulting from overlaps, unnecessary rules and eliminating fraud and waste.

These combined resources should be used for a disciplined program that can bring about a gradual reduction in the deficit each year, plus a stronger national community that builds on the strength and accomplishments of the past 60 years, instead of retreating to a position comparable with that of the 1930s.