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Show Proposes Rural Social Y Security Minus Red Tape Simple Stamp Plan Evolved to Record Mod- TmB est Beneficiary Payments and Avoid jfe.ijl Complicated Bookkeeping Duties. ' 3fc J By BAUKIIAGE Yen Analyst and Commentator. dorsed It In the last election campaign, the social security board last month broached the Rubject to congressional attention atten-tion once again, and there is a hill which would accomplish It the Wagner - Murray - Dingcll hill. This hill was sent to the house ways and means committee commit-tee on May 24, 1945, and It's still there, gathering dust. It is doubtful that the committee will take any action unless some pressure Is brought to bear by Interested Dartics. WNU Service, 1616 Fye Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. There are 7,148.422 specimens of wildlife In the United States not wildlife as represented by the recently re-cently vindicated Esquire magazine but big game animals like deer, buffalo and mountain goats. The fish and wildlife service counted them, canvassing the wide open spaces to do it. Prof. Murray R. Benedict of the University of California has been doing do-ing some counting too In the wide ODen snaces or at least down on Of course, there is opposition to the Idea In some quarters. Some persons who oppose including farmers, farm-ers, and other workers not now insured, in-sured, advance the nation-can't-af-ford-it argument. They say that as more and more persons in occupations occupa-tions covered by social security reach the retirement age, the amounts paid into the trust fund aren't going to be sufficient to pay them off, unless the treasury digs down and adds public funds. In 1939, the lawmakers threshed this out and came up with a plan to make the fund continuously self-supporting. self-supporting. They decided to make the contributions high enough so that the government would not have to help out. They agreed to keep the present 1 per cent from employee em-ployee and 1 per cent from employer employ-er rate until 1943. After that, they'd Increase It to 2 per cent each; then to 2.5 per cent; then to 3 per cent from 1948 on. However, congress deferred the rate increase during dur-ing the war, and hasn't ever gotten around to upping it. Unless rates are increased, undoubtedly the treasury will have to shell out in I the farm, and he came up with the conclusion that In 1939 more than half the farm owners in the country coun-try raised less than $750 worth of products on their land. Consequently Consequent-ly these low-income farmers, and a great many other farmers In only slightly higher income brackets, find it almost Impossible to save money toward the time when they can no longer work. They are harassed har-assed by a feeling of economic Insecuritythe In-securitythe kind of economic Insecurity In-security which President Truman recently said was tending to break down family life In this country. Mr. Truman suggested that perhaps we ought to have a "Bill of Rights" for the family as well as for the Individual. Professor Benedict doesn't suggest sug-gest a Bill of Rights for the farmer, but in a pamphlet entitled "A Retirement Re-tirement System for Farmers" he does suggest that the farmer be Included In-cluded In the federal social security secur-ity system. The farmer earning no more than $750 from the sale of products would be listed at a self-employed worker making an ns:iimrH nnt bwAnu nf $400. He would pay into the social security fund 2 per cent of his income in-come each year, and to make the yearly payments a little easier to take, the farmer would use a stamp book, buying social security stamps to paste In whenever he had some pare cash. Farmers who earn $750 or more' can follow the same procedure. They are given a standard deduction deduc-tion based on how much they earn. For example, those farmers earning earn-ing between $750 and $1,000 get a $300 deduction; there's a $400 deduction de-duction for the next highest group nd so on. They take their deduction, deduc-tion, make the simple report of net Income, and that's that. But some farmers may Insist that their expenses exceed the deduction I future years, when the system gets I into full swing. And if farmers and other presently uninsured workers work-ers are brought in undoubtedly the treasury will have to shell out more. Other Aid Now Tops Billion Consider what the government is alr eady handing out to support aged persons not covered by social security. se-curity. The costs of old-age assistance assist-ance and aid to dependent children from 1933 to 1944. to the country, added up to a tidy billion dollars. And costs will continue to go up as the : average age of the population rises. I I All of which means the government 1 has dispensed almost a billion dol- j lars In charity to persons who ! might, had they been able to make allowed them. That's okay with Mr. Benedict. For them, he would pro-Vide pro-Vide a separate form so the farmer could list his actual expenses and deduct them. Farm Hands Also Covered All this applies to farm-owners. But perhaps the farm owner, own-er, Jake Duncan, has a helper, Tom. Tom Is a farm wage-worker, and If Mr. Benedict has his way, farm wage-workers like Tom would be treated much the same as Industrial workers, Insofar as social security Is concerned. con-cerned. That means Jake, the employer would deduct Tom's 1 per cent from his wages, add his own payment of 1 per cent to Tom's 1 per cent and transmit trans-mit to the government at the end of each quarter, the funds and a certified statement of wages paid. Here again, Mr. Benedict wants regular social security contributions during their working years, have I been able to get along without such I charity. Other opponents foresee the farmer bogged down in an avalanche ava-lanche of government questionnaires, question-naires, financial reports, lists, ledgers and statistics, shi aid he be made a participating member mem-ber of the social security system. sys-tem. But under Mr. Benedict's plan, the farmer's duties to his government where social security secur-ity is concerned are a minimum. He won't have to keep detailed farm records. The reports he does have to make are simple ones. As a matter of fact. If he uses the stamp plan to take care of his employee's social security se-curity payments, he won't have as much paper work as industrial indus-trial or professional employers have. Still another argument is advanced ad-vanced by people who predict mj save jane, me employer, irom long nights spent at the rolltop desk pouring over social security records. rec-ords. He suggests as one way to eliminate paper work, a stamp book aystem. Tom would get a stamp book from the post office. Each time Jake pays Tom off, Jake would affix af-fix and cancel the proper stamps. That's a painless way of recording payments. Mr. Benedict doesn't think that nine million farmers and farmworkers farm-workers can be brought into the social so-cial security system overnight. Neither does he predict smooth sailing right from the start if they were brought in. It will take time and a far-reaching educational program. pro-gram. The Idea of Including farmers farm-ers under the social security plan Is not a new one. Most of the Important farm organizations organiza-tions have okayed the Idea; both presidential candidates en- gloomily that if workers are assured as-sured of a regular income from social security after retirement, they won't work; they won't save during the years they can work. Mr. Benedict thinks that argument argu-ment is as ancient as the reconstructed recon-structed dodo in the Smithsonian Institution. In-stitution. Social security benefits, as set up now, will certainly not buy retiring oldsters any mink coats or Cadillac coupes. The benefits are very modest ones. Any sensible person per-son can see he'll have to have some other resources besides social security se-curity if he wants to live at any level above the barest minimum of subsistence when he reaches retirement retire-ment age. He'll save money, try to accumulate property, perhaps carry private business Insurance too. But if he can't save, and it's not only the farmers who can't, social security se-curity benefits In later years may keep him from becoming a public charge. |