Sunday, April 10, 2011
Borrowed Social Security
Of the nearly $14.2 trillion in debt, roughly $5 trillion is money the government has borrowed from other accounts, mostly from Social Security revenues, according to federal figures. Several major policies from the past decade when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress — tax cuts, a Medicare prescription-drug benefit and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — account for more than $3.2 trillion.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
What Motivated FDR to Push For the Social Security Act
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Posted by Anthony Mason 2 comments .
0diggsdigg ShareE-mailPrintFont . "It was definitely controversial at the time." That's how historian Doris Kearns Goodwin describes President Franklin Roosevelt's battle to enact Social Security legislation in the 1930's.
We went to Goodwin, author of "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" for some perspective as Congress debates whether to raise the retirement age for the system, now 66, up to 69 or 70.
Goodwin says there were two motivating factors behind FDR's push for the Social Security Act. First, "there was an immediate need to do something about older people who were devastated by the depression." But more broadly "what he wanted to do was to establish a principal that somehow if people had worked all their lives, we the Americans owed them security."
Baby Boom to Bust: Time to Raise Retirement Age?
Another intention was to get older workers to retire, so younger workers could get jobs. "And it's ironic today that we're in the opposite direction in wanting older people to work longer, so that we can keep paying them."
But no one knew then how significantly life expectancy would grow. More than 53 million Americans now receive Social Security payments. "At that time, in 1930," Goodwin says, "only 6 percent of the people were over the age of 65."
When he signed the legislation in 1935, FDR understood the importance of the moment. "It seems to me," he said, "that if the Senate and the House of Representatives in this long and arduous session have done nothing more than pass this Social Security Act, the session will be regarded as historic for all time."
But Goodwin says even FDR could not have realized how Social Security would become some imprinted on the minds of the American people.
"These politicians have a lot of challenges on their hands to figure out how to deal with this sacred institution."
. -2009 November 27, 2010 4:12 PM EST
Social Security is the retirement system of the working class of the United States weather we like it or not. It has to be funded regardless of the financial drain on the Government. As long as we see it as an entitlement and not as a welfare program it will survive. But we need to revise the criteria on who is actually entitled to receive funds from it. If you have never paid into it then you should never be entitled to receive any funds from it. Thats simple enough. You should also have to be a US citizen.
Reply to this comment ...by cktirumalai November 24, 2010 8:59 AM EST
In introducing Social Security, Franklin Roosevelt had the demographic advantage that in 1930 life expectancy was such that only 6% of Americans were over 65. Even so I am sure that at the time a good many Americans thought Government "entitlement" programs of that kind, despite the misery of the Depression, a step entirely in the wrong direction, a position which has its supporters today.
But with people living longer now (and Medicare requiring more money), the proportion of workers to the retired keeps getting smaller, though not so alarmingly as in, say, Japan. It is a Gordian knot.
Candadai Tirumalai
.
Posted by Anthony Mason 2 comments .
0diggsdigg ShareE-mailPrintFont . "It was definitely controversial at the time." That's how historian Doris Kearns Goodwin describes President Franklin Roosevelt's battle to enact Social Security legislation in the 1930's.
We went to Goodwin, author of "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II" for some perspective as Congress debates whether to raise the retirement age for the system, now 66, up to 69 or 70.
Goodwin says there were two motivating factors behind FDR's push for the Social Security Act. First, "there was an immediate need to do something about older people who were devastated by the depression." But more broadly "what he wanted to do was to establish a principal that somehow if people had worked all their lives, we the Americans owed them security."
Baby Boom to Bust: Time to Raise Retirement Age?
Another intention was to get older workers to retire, so younger workers could get jobs. "And it's ironic today that we're in the opposite direction in wanting older people to work longer, so that we can keep paying them."
But no one knew then how significantly life expectancy would grow. More than 53 million Americans now receive Social Security payments. "At that time, in 1930," Goodwin says, "only 6 percent of the people were over the age of 65."
When he signed the legislation in 1935, FDR understood the importance of the moment. "It seems to me," he said, "that if the Senate and the House of Representatives in this long and arduous session have done nothing more than pass this Social Security Act, the session will be regarded as historic for all time."
But Goodwin says even FDR could not have realized how Social Security would become some imprinted on the minds of the American people.
"These politicians have a lot of challenges on their hands to figure out how to deal with this sacred institution."
. -2009 November 27, 2010 4:12 PM EST
Social Security is the retirement system of the working class of the United States weather we like it or not. It has to be funded regardless of the financial drain on the Government. As long as we see it as an entitlement and not as a welfare program it will survive. But we need to revise the criteria on who is actually entitled to receive funds from it. If you have never paid into it then you should never be entitled to receive any funds from it. Thats simple enough. You should also have to be a US citizen.
Reply to this comment ...by cktirumalai November 24, 2010 8:59 AM EST
In introducing Social Security, Franklin Roosevelt had the demographic advantage that in 1930 life expectancy was such that only 6% of Americans were over 65. Even so I am sure that at the time a good many Americans thought Government "entitlement" programs of that kind, despite the misery of the Depression, a step entirely in the wrong direction, a position which has its supporters today.
But with people living longer now (and Medicare requiring more money), the proportion of workers to the retired keeps getting smaller, though not so alarmingly as in, say, Japan. It is a Gordian knot.
Candadai Tirumalai
.
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