Senator Clinton has concluded that fear mongering about Social Security makes for good fundraising. She recently sent out two e-mails in three days warning that President Bush is robbing widows and orphans by proposing, in his latest budget, the elimination of the $255 lump-sum death benefit currently paid out to help alleviate funeral expenses and by seeking to condition eligibility for monthly survivor benefits for 16- and 17-year-olds on whether the teenagers stay in school.

Mrs. Clinton’s hyperventilation aside, grandmothers and Oliver Twist look-alikes will not suddenly be shunted into the streets of Manhattan or Dubuque. No one is proposing any reduction in the $90 billion Social Security pays out each year in monthly survivors’ benefit checks. The $255 checks are a holdover from the Eisenhower era – the amount on the check hasn’t increased since 1954. Back then, $255 might have gone a long way toward covering burial costs, but today the average price of a funeral is $6,500 including casket but not cemetery costs, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

As for the orphans, the administration is only trying to extend to 16- and 17-year-olds the same rules that already apply to 18-year-old survivors. Although survivor benefits would normally not cover 18-year-olds, the program makes an exception for those who are still finishing high school. The administration wants to extend that exception down the age ladder to transform it into an inducement for teenagers to stay in school.

Mrs. Clinton evidently supports perpetuating a benefit that doesn’t really help anyone and also believes teenagers should be allowed to drop out of high school if they want. Maybe she’s right, maybe not. One solution would be to let the market decide by allowing people to invest their Social Security deductions in private accounts of their own. The accounts would be heritable by anyone, solving one problem with the current $255 payout – it can only go to a surviving spouse or child, leaving other family and friends in the lurch if someone dies without a suitable payee.

Mrs. Clinton and her Democratic colleagues are blocking such a reform. As a result, the administration is left trying to prioritize among different elements of an increasingly strained entitlement. In this case, the president hopes to use the $200 million it would liberate to shore up other parts of the system, like administering the disability program. This kind of decision has been forced on the administration by politicians who aren’t willing to allow more serious reform. If Mrs. Clinton is unhappy about how the president has struck the balance in this case, she could take the decision out of the hands of this, or any future, administration by supporting personal accounts instead of merely sending out fundraising letters.