Posted on 08/14/2014 2:17:38 AM PDT by right-wing agnostic
Would Franklin Roosevelt approve of Social Security? The question seems absurd. After all, Social Security is considered the New Deal’s signature achievement. It distributes nearly $800 billion a year to 56 million retirees, survivors and disabled beneficiaries. On average, retired workers and spouses receive $1,839 a month — money vital to the well-being of millions. Roosevelt would surely be proud of this, and yet he might also have reservations. Social Security has evolved into something he never intended and actively opposed.
It has become what was then called “the dole” and is now known as “welfare.” This forgotten history clarifies why America’s budget problems are so intractable.
When Roosevelt proposed Social Security in 1935, he envisioned a contributory pension plan. Workers’ payroll taxes (“contributions”) would be saved and used to pay their retirement benefits. Initially, before workers had time to pay into the system, there would be temporary subsidies. But Roosevelt rejected Social Security as a “pay-as-you-go” system that channeled the taxes of today’s workers to pay today’s retirees. That, he believed, would saddle future generations with huge debts — or higher taxes — as the number of retirees expanded.
Discovering that the original draft wasn’t a contributory pension, Roosevelt ordered it rewritten and complained to Frances Perkins, his labor secretary: “This is the same old dole under another name. It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress . . . to meet.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Kind of a version of follow the money. Can you imagine how long some politician would survive if he ran on a platform to demolish this program now? My point is, the pols have been buying votes with these programs for years and we have reached the point of no return now. Try to chop off any one of them and the howls start.
Between personal and business welfare, I’d estimate 80% of the cash expenditures of the Fed gov fall into these categories. We are so far down the rabbit hole now there is no escape. If interest rates rise, either as a result of inflation or the other way around, the interest on the national debt will become unpayable. On top of that, the deficits will grow exponentionally as the inflation fueled entitlements increase the deficits even more. There is no escape from the notion: there is no free lunch.
Social Secuirty Trustee admits it’s a Ponzi Scheme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITMEZImvNio
the SS Trustee also says that payroll taxes alone will have to be 30% in order to keep paying the current level of benefits.
Money quote:
“Writing yourself a check for $1,000,000 does not make you a millioniare”
FDR specifically said-—I read the message to my students-—that “voluntary annuities” (I.e., private) should replace government funding. FDR was the first to call for privatization.
No he wouldnt. When fdr signed the SS, it was just a dim-0 plot to rob working people all their working lives and use the money to but the votes of old people. Think not? CONSIDER this. You had to be 65 years of age to retire and collect SS, but the average life span at the time? 59 years!!!!! The dim-0s intended that most would be dead after paying for decades, without ever drawing back anything.
SS was a plot to keep FDR president for life. It worked.
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Indeed, the expect honesty from the only President to stack the Supreme Court is a bit rich.
FDR was a socialist tyrant
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