on to finance the federal deficit out of social security collections, rather than cause the American taxpayer to pay for the deficit directly, or, heaven forbid, reduce spending. Regardless of what the Administrations (Reagan and Bush), the Republican Party, or their lackies say, neither side (Republicans or Democrats, Administration or Congress) and both sides want to reduce federal spending. The Republicans and the Administrations are quite keen on keeping spending on national defense high; however, they are quite amenable to spending cuts on social programs. The Democrats and the Congress are commit ted to maintaining spending levels on social programs; however, they are quite ready to consider severe cuts in national defense spending. Thus, it is clear that both sides are squarely on the side of responsible spending reductions as 3long as the great majority of the spending cuts are applied to the other guy's pet programs.
The Social Security Administration (1989) generally pro claims that the retirement trust funds are actuarially sound. Such claims, however, are based upon an assumption that the federal government will be able to repay the trust funds when those loaned funds are required by the Social Security Adminis tration to begin paying retirement benefits to the baby boom generation (Social Security Administration, 1989). As will be pointed out in a later discussion in this research, the accep tance of such an assumption requires a gigantic leap of faith (Grace, 1989).
INCOME CHANGE FOR INDIVIDUALS AT RETIREMENT
The full retirement process does not occur at one fell swoop for most individuals in the United States. It has been estimated that the income reduction process connected with retirement occurs for most people over quite a long time period stretching from the late 50s to the early 70s (Grad, 1990). For this reason, among others, an earnings test is applied to social security benefits. Thus, alth...