The Michigan Daily-Thursday, May 21, 1981-Page 11
Social Security
cuts defended
by White House
From APand UPI
WASHINGTON-Despite signals
President Reagan will compromise on
his much-criticized plan to cut Social
Security benefits, the White "House
yesterday defended the reduction
package as "bold" and "courageous."
A House committee reported yester-
day that President Reagan's Social
Security plan would slash benefits for
18.1 million people who retire the next
five years and deny disability checks to
1.3 million other workers.
A STUDY released by the staff of
Rep. Claude Pepper (D-FIa.), chair-
man of the House Select Committee on
Aging found:
" All 8.1 million people now aged 56 to
61 who retire the next five years would
suffer an average'10 percent cut in
initial benefits "because of a so-called
technical change in the formula used to
calculate benefits."
" More than 7 million workers and
spouses who claim early retirement
benefits the next five years "would
receive cuts equal to one-third of
promised benefits."
" Nearly 1.3 million workers who un-
der present law would draw disability
checks the next five years would lose
the benefits.
IN ADDITION, previsou Reagan
proposals to save $35 billion in Social
Security by 1$86-by eliminating the
minimum benefit, student benefits and
death benefits-would affect more than
4 million people, the study said.
Reagan also would increase Social
Security's costs by $6.5 billion by 1986
by phasing out penalties that now cut
benefits for the elderly who keep
working. The net impact is an $81
billion cut in benefits by 1986, with
nearly $24 billion in that year alone.
Reagan's proposals were billed as a
way both to lift the system out of a
short-term crisis that is threatening to
dry up its old age fund before the end of
1982, and to avert an even Worse crisis 4
years from now, when the baby-booni
generation hits retirement age.
TOP SOCIAL Security officials
acknowledge that over the long term,
Reagan is seeking to save twice as
much as Social Security needs to
operate in the black for 75 years. The
president's plan is to rebate some of
that savings to taxpayers through lower
payroll taxes.
At a morning briefing, acting White
House press secretary Larry Speakes
was asked what his response is to
workers who had planned to retire at 62
and now find that under Reagan's
proposal their benefits would be
slashed.
"WE WOULD like to provide them
with the incentive to continue to work
and stay in the mainstream of the
economy," Speakes said.
The reductions, the first major cuts in
the 45-year history of the retirement
system, have evoked a storm of op-
position on Capitol Hill.
A House resolution, offered by
Speaker Thomas O'Neill, stated: "We
will support reasonable and fair actions
to protect the solvency of the Social
Security system, but we must not
destroy the program or a generation of
retirees in the process."
Doily roto ny JACKIEo DE
Samurai juggler
T.R. (Truly Remarkable) Loon demonstrated his spectacular skill yester-
day on the Diag in the Ann Arbor debut of the First Church of Fun Juggling
Company. The troupe, which includes Loon's twin brother Martin the
Manipulator, hails from Madison, Wisconsin and expects to return to Ann
Arbor for the annual Art Fair.
Man tries to forget
u s i t
un us t ison te rn
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Aaron
Owens slept fitfully and woke in
darkness, covered with sweat. After
eight years spent in prison for a murder
he didn't commit, the freedom won with
the aid of the man who prosecuted him
seemed like a jailhouse dream.
"You dream when you are in prison
and you dream you are out. It was hard
for me to accept the fact I was free.
"I WAS ALL tight," he said, adding
that for four weeks after his March 6
release from San Quentin he slept only
a few hours a day.
He would rise with the moon and
drive through the deserted streets of
Oakland, circling Lake Merritt,
ducking into the flourescent brightness
of an all-night coffee shop.
Then, one day as he drove along a
freeway through Oakland, Owens
relaxed.
"IT WAS LIKE I breathed for the fir-
st time. I had the window down and
HART was going by and I could hear
it," he said. "Just like I finally got a
breath."
Now 37, Owens said he has not made
firm plans for the future. His marriage
dissolved while he was behind bars, and
he's trying to spend a lot of time with
his daughters.
At least now he can talk about his
wrongful imprisonment' and its after-
math, including his friendship with at-
torney John Taylor, the prosecutor who
sent him to prison and then worked to
set him free.
OWENS, "WAS looking at his third
felony conviction" when he was
arrested in 1972 and charged with mur-
dering reputed drug dealer Stan Bryant
and his girlfriend, Suenette Cook,
Taylor said.
An eyewitness picked Owens from a
photo file of suspected drug dealers and
identified him as one of the killers. In-
vestigators learned that the other
suspect, Glenn Bailey, had phoned
Owens' house after the shootings. They
scoffed at Bailey's claim that he did not
know Owens and had been trying to rea
a friend of Owens' sister.
In January, 1980, Taylor had a short
conversation with Owens following his
parole hearing. Struck by Owens' ap-
parent sincerity, Taylor told the
District Attorney there might have
been a mistake.
Months passed, and Taylor finally
met with Bailey. "Bailey not only gave
me the name of the killer, he gave me
facts from which I could prove that in-
dependently."
The case was officially reopened and
early in 1981, the district attorney's of-
fice told Superior Court Judge Alan
Lindsay that Owens should be released.
On March 6, Owens left San Quentin a
free man.
SEE PEACE CORPS REPS AT CAMPUS INN (769-
2200) ON MAY 27TH, 28TH & 29TH, OR CALL
PEACE CORPS DETROIT OFFICE, COLLECT.
(313) 226-7928