January 31, 1993

FOR all the X's and O's in the game plans, the Super Bowl invariably boils down to the A-B-C's of football. "The idea of football," Vince Lombardi once proclaimed, "is to knock down the players on the other team."

President Clinton's economic advisers and Democratic Congressional leaders have concluded that retirees receiving Social Security benefits and Government pensions should pay a significant part of the price of deficit reduction, officials in the White House and Congress said this week. But the advisers and the top lawmakers disagree over how they should pay: whether through limiting cost-of-living increases in benefits or by increasing taxes on benefits. President Clinton has not come down on either side, the officials said in interviews, but they added that Senate leaders had warned him that any attempt to freeze benefits would be rejected by the Senate. Political Dangers Ahead Over the years, cuts in Social Security have been thought to represent political suicide. But Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers seem to agree that they cannot exempt the elderly when asking all Americans to make equal sacrifices to reduce the budget deficit.

IN his inaugural address, President Clinton recalled Thomas Jefferson's belief "that to preserve the very foundations of our nation we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow Americans," Mr. Clinton said, "this is our time. Let us embrace it." Not everyone was in such an embracing mood last week, but few doubted any longer that the season of change was here. From Capitol Hill to the Pentagon to the radio call-in shows, the message heard across the land was: My fellow Americans, fasten your seat belts. Mr. Clinton, who was known for a rather messy but nevertheless effective style of governing in Arkansas, insisted that he was not distracted by the frenzy surrounding his decision to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. The truth be told, Clinton aides say, it was distracting everybody. It was a cacophony, though, that people probably had better get used to, for it could be the theme music for the early Clinton Administration -- a symphony inherent in its very diverse agenda and the personality traits of the boss himself.

"TWENTYSOMETHINGS" on Long Island are moving from ivy-laced dormitories to their childhood rooms. Faced with car payments, college loans and empty bank accounts, they see the obvious benefits of living at home, especially on the Island -- free rent, hot meals and a quick commuting trip to Manhattan. But after work and on weekends their situation appears less promising. For those who have lived away from Long Island for years, and for some who have stayed, social options are limited.

Last spring Josef Puehringer visited the Art Deco District and fell in love with its pastel-painted hotels, breezy cafes and bustling art galleries. This winter he tied the knot, buying an apartment in a neighborhood he wistfully compares to the Riviera. "In Monte Carlo, you couldn't get a garage for what a oceanfront studio costs here," said Mr. Puehringer, who is Austrian. "I looked at a great number of apartments from Key Largo to Fort Lauderdale, and this seemed like the best investment around."