Sen. Phil Gramm, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, has pledged to stop President Clinton's proposal to allow the federal government to become an investment manager for the Social Security Trust Fund.

"I will oppose any effort to allow government bureaucrats to invest Social Security dollars," Gramm said. "Individual workers should be able to choose their own money managers.

"The President wants the government — not workers — to own the investments," Gramm said. "I believe this proposal will be rejected by serious Democrats and Republicans alike."

The Senate Banking Committee has jurisdiction over stock and bond markets.

Gramm noted that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan expressed alarm about government control of Social Security investments in testimony before the committee last July 21.

"I think it's very dangerous," Greenspan said. "I just feel that there's a slippery slope of extraordinary magnitude to move that power into a government agency."

Gramm said the President should heed the Federal Reserve chairman: "This is one slippery slope that the President should avoid. We need to save Social Security, not deliver it to the bureaucrats."