Rude Pundit has a most excellent discussion of the Social Security issue and why we should not be rolling over, but in fact should be digging up St Ronnie and making soup from his bones and serving it to his ideological heirs. Good stuff. At the end of his post is a link out to the SS administration, with a history of Social Security and all the shenanagins that went on around its birth. Tucked away in there is link to a CYA letter written on White House Stationary by Herbert Hoover to Simeon Fess, a republican senator from Ohio. Guess what, it's the original "blame the Democrats" document. No shit. Except interestingly enough it blames the Democrats in Congress for not following his bold and fabulous plan to raise taxes to end the depression. I kind of doubt any proposals he made to raise revenue resonated much with anyone, or why wouldn't they have been implemented when the nation was hurting?
The day will come when the Democratic party will endeavor to place the responsibility for the events of the Fifth period on the Republican Party. When that day comes I hope you will invite the attention of the American people to the actual truth.
Who knew that the whole republican "it's not my fault" mantra started with Hoover before he even left office. In the letter he characterizes the programs that Roosevelt and the Democrats proposed then launched to help pull America out of the Great Depression as profligate:
... There have been proposed in the Congress by Democratic leaders and publicaly even by the President-elect, projects involving federal expenditure of tremendous dimensions which would obviously lie beyond the capacity of the federal government to borrow without tremendous depreciation in government securities. Such proposals as the bills to assume Federal responsibility for billions of mortgages, loans to municipalities for public works, the Tennessee improvements and Muscle Shoals, are all of this order. ...
Yeah, those were some were some horrible things to do...putting folks back to work, whose plight Hoover bemoaned earlier in the letter, but had no vision to help other than seemingly trusting his good friends in corporate America to assist (1000 Points of Greed?) and that wasn't happening.
The "Brief History" of Social Security, is pretty interesting. It's also interesting to note in reading it, that there was every sort of crazy-ass scheme imaginable (some almost became law) proposed, except one: "Market Based". Gee, I wonder why?
Social Security is the last great New Deal program for the Hooverian Republicans (and the uber-wingnuts are just that) to dismantle to exact their revenge on Roosevelt and the Democrats for Being Right. The Social Security Trust Fund is also history's largest piggy-bank just waiting for some Congressionally-enabled robber barons to break in and steal it all.
We can't let it happen. Ever.
posted by Jo Fish on 01.06.05 at 05:46 PM
Comments:
Unfortunately, the Republicans are strategically poised to trash Social Security. I think Dubya and company are going to try to throw a fast-ball past the American People, just like they did when justifying the war in Iraq.
1. Convince a majority that Social Security is is in dire straits, and is a dysfunctional system. (A lie)
2. Convince a majority that SS can only be saved by this "privatization" scheme. (A lie)
All done on the basis of strategic sound-byte propaganda.
Watch Paul Krugman's articles in the NYT to get the best insight. Also, the NYT did a great editorial on 3 January.
Hell AWOL will just hold back the checks enough days to create a scare and run around SEE I TOLD YOU SO and the media will cover his codpiece as usual.
Social Security death payment is a measley amount (about $250?).
When a person passes, extend the death gratuity over the next 16 months in a sliding scale (starting at three quarters or the original 250 level) and sliding down until it reaches a minimum cieling and paid out until a full year's pay is complete, with a cieling amount going out for everyone,indexed up in poverty/need instances.
To help pay for burial expense which has indexed quite high. The death payment has not indexed upward at all. On average a year's payments can get the double digit thousands range, which covers minimum service costs for most major market funerals.
This will redefine what one's contributions to society recieves in repayment by seeing that survivors or even individuals can pass peacefully and on honorable terms without passing such burden on.
The defereed payment can go directly to service providers to see the intent is carried out in full. Life and Burial insurance providers can work with this as well.
Roosevelt would have approved of this in this era, this sliding scale curbs short term fiscal strain, adds to taxable revenue at every level, and in spirit matches the idea that social security sees to the needs of all who have worked to help support it.
Also it reaffirms the right of choice to survivors/remembrance by helping people gain closure without additional crisis-termed financial worry.
See this reaffirms the family right to closure. The additional peace of mind such a continued , deferred payment would help address can have no dollar value placed on it.
This is America and we take care of ours.
posted by: Mr.Murder on 01.12.05 at 11:22 AM [permalink]
