my own opinions on the matter.

That said, there was an interesting historic consequence (in mho) to this that I think I may have discussed with you before.

FDR's "social security" freed the sons and daughters of America from having to support the elders in their family. It therefore broke the bonds of extended family life (aunts, uncles, grandma, grandpa, sons, daughters, grandkids all in one house) that was so common prior to the Depression and helped to prepare the way for the little "nuclear family" post World War II boom where everyone got their own little new house in the suburbs (also probably further fueled the long-occuring rural to urban march.)

It really did help significantly change the American way of life. (As with most groundbreaking historic changes, definitely not all positive results--Betty Friedan going crazy in the suburbs was one result. I am just the opposite; as an independent/loner/individualist type, I do not think of it as a negative at all; I for one am grateful that I don't have to live in what I would consider a suffocating environment of an extended family. I read stories about women in Afghanistan or China or India having to deal with mothers-in-law in the house and I shudder! :-) These days, with many of the 'greatest generation' getting a payout way beyond what they put in, many of them have a better lifestyle than their kids, and end up supporting the 'kids' rather than the other way around!)

If so, strong support here for elevating it to Agonist front page!

What a wonderfully thoughtful piece of work! Thank you.

at one point the thought of doing some of the research you did occurred to me, but I just lay down and rested until the thought of work on

a project just went away :-)

there is a Duke University paper that is worth reading:

http://www.econ.duke.edu/Journals/DJE/dje2002/baecher.pdf

Also, I had,, until recently, a 3-year-old Newsday article that tied in the increasing freedom for women to work outside the home (rather than being bound to the traditional female roles of "caring for parents") not only to Social Security but also to Medicare, which is in a more financially precarious position.

Imagine paying for our parent's health (or not)

This is why the issue of fundng has to be handled as part of what we want our society to look like from cradle to grave.

If government won't help, relgious and other charitable organizations and women confined to homes to care of aging relatives(and there's enough of that already) will have to take up the "slack"

Artappraiser highlights a theme that really was at the core of Franklin Roosevelt's campaign in support of Social Security - the concept that the reduction of personal risk for retired workers and their families led to greater freedom overall for society. This crops up in many of FDR's speeches to Congress and also in his fireside chats, and was summarized in his 1941 address where he introduced his Four Freedoms, including the freedom from want.  

In reading the Duke University paper, which is really an excellent history of the economic and philosophical debates over Social Security from 1930 to the present, FDR is shown as someone who wanted to bridge the gap between the "institutionalist economic theory" that underlined many of his policies, and the mercantilist theory of personal freedom that critics of Social Security relied upon for their arguments.  Institutionalist economic theory argued that there were flaws in capitalism that only the government could fix.  One of them was the tendency for capitalism to isolate individuals and break up the cohesion of the extended family that existed in rural economies.  Another was a tendency for inequality as individuals pursued their self interest at the expense of others.  Critics of this aspect of capitalism referred to it as "rugged individualism", though today we would probably call it Objectivism because Ayn Rand took over the whole rugged individual philosophy as her own invention.

As you read through the history and debates over Social Security, you can see how masterful Roosevelt was in tying together these disparate philosophies.  He emphasized that providing for the social good did not absolve the individual of the need to plan for the future.  "Personal responsibility was critical" he would say, and he mentioned that his social programs would help preserve the United States as "God's country".

With Roosevelt's death the nation lost that voice of moderation, and the competing philosophies were allowed to drift into opposition.  Bill Clinton didn't exactly help matters.  He opposed individual investment accounts, but he endorsed the idea of the government investing Social Security payroll taxes into equities rather than Treasury bonds.  No one today really is speaking with ardor about the benefits to capitalism of providing for worker's dignity and basic needs in retirement.  There is no sound discussion about how capitalism has flaws, partly because the long history of economic success since the Depression has weakened the public's perception of capitalism as an economic model involving tremendous personal risk. In fact, the Republicans have done everything to enshrine capitalism as the most perfect economic system possible and the evolutionary end of economic development.  In would be interesting if at least one Democratic politician  made the argument that capitalism has been successful all these years precisely because the federal government has moderated its excesses and ameliorated its failings.  All the fervor in the current debate is on the side of the mercantlists and rugged individualists who place personal freedom ahead of any considerations for social cohesion or morality.  And yes, FDR did point out how his programs fostered a more moral society.  Odd, isn't it, that the Republicans now have a monopoly even on morality.

from the top of The Hill's weekly newsletter, just delivered to my email:

From :  The eNews <enews@thehill.com>

Reply-To :  enews@thehill.com

Sent :  Friday, January 7, 2005 11:11 AM

To :  <enews-html@thehill.com>

Subject :  The Hill e-News

The Tipsheet for January 7, 2005

Status quo?

With the president apparently letting Congress work out the details of Social Security reform, don't be surprised if Republican leadership in both the House and Senate cool their support for this political hot potato. Social Security has been a long-time political graveyard for Republicans -- see Speaker Tip O'Neill's battle with President Ronald Reagan. In addition, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) might be reluctant to twist arms within the conference after forcing so many members to make a tough vote on the prescription-drug benefit.

is continued with other stuff.

Keep on making it "a political hot potato" and this may suffice! :-)

Thanks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6789700/site/newsweek/

see page 2: On Social Security

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6789775/site/newsweek/

NYT 1/8

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Women and Children First

By MICHAEL C. LARACY

It would be a disaster if Congress were to reform Social Security in a way that would slowly swell the ranks of the poor and welfare-dependent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/opinion/08laracy.html

excerpt:

...Understandably, almost all of the debate about Social Security reform has focused on the effects on future retirees or on the federal budget deficit. This overlooks the role of Social Security as a life and disability insurance program, one that provides vital benefits to spouses and more than five million American children in families whose breadwinner died prematurely or became disabled. Benefit changes that may be tolerable for future retirees could have devastating consequences for these survivors.

When the federal government created both welfare and Social Security during the Great Depression, it envisioned welfare as a temporary program. Eventually, policy makers believed, Social Security would replace both welfare and the numerous underfinanced state programs for widows and orphans. They were wrong about welfare, but they were right about Social Security....

investing in that the basic concept of insurance (which social security is) is that it is a promise.  You pay a premium in and are guaranteed a payment of your claim.  To make certain that there are funds to pay that claim, the state agency insurance regulators all have enacted strict rules concerning how insurance companies invest the funds set aside for claim payment reserves.  While these rules vary widely in their terms, generally speaking they require that insurance company reserves investments are of the highest quality and involve the least risk.  Typically these investments are restricted to treasury bills and other government guaranteed instruments.  

So despite the fact that insurance companies are extremely sophisticated investors who employ highly qualified full-time investment professionals with state of the art tools and are overseen by investment committees from the most senior echelons of management, their regulators don't let them muck around with that part of your premium dollar that is set aside to pay your claim.

You may draw your own conclusions as to the wisdom of proposing that ordinary taxpayers be given more power to make decisions concerning the investment of what are in essence premiums than insurance regulators give insurance companies.

Would it be possible  To get permission to print this in my local paper? all credit going to you of course and this site

Very interesting article and thread. EOM :)

Caribdude

Numerian states:

"If you search through FDR's various speeches on Social Security, the descriptive that comes up most frequently is insurance. Social Security was proposed and established as an insurance program, whereby workers would pool their resources to help those who had already retired..."

What Numerian fails to know or acknowledge is that in the 1930s there were two distinct schools of thought on how "social insurance" should operate. Thus, noting that FDR talked about "insurance" in his speeches does not answer the question of whether he supported pay go cost spreading Social Security old age support. And the correct answer is that he did not.

The "Ohio" model of social insurance was redistributive in nature. However, the "Wisconsin" model of social insurance was conceived of as an annuity established by the pre-funding contributions of workers themselves who would thereby establish their own support in old age. The story of these two schools of thought on social insurance and how they impacted the development of Social Security is well described by Social Security Advisory Board member Sylvester Schieber (see http://www.ssab.gov/members.html ) in his book "The Real Deal: The History and Future of Social Security" (Yale University Press 1999). See e.g.,

>>"By the time FDR had created the Committee on Economic Security, two major schools of thought had evolved in the United States on how to approach the design and implementation of such programs in this country. One of these, labeled the Ohio model, evolved from the work of Issac M. Rubinow and his student Abraham Epstein. The other, labeled the Wisconsin model, evolved from the work of John Commons and John Andrews. ... "

>> "Commons and Andrews' thinking on social insurance had evolved over the years along the lines of a relatively pure insurance model. With this approach, one insures against a specified risk by accumulating a contingency fund that can be used to cover the expense when the contingency insured against actually occurs. ... It was considered "social" insurance because it was mandated by the government and provided protections that would not arise naturally in a free market environment. ... "

Id., pp. 28-29.

(continued)

1935 - FDR and Social Security Adopt a Worker Pre-Funded Mechanism of "Social Security"

FDR and the original 1935 Social Security Act legislation stood for social insurance as contemplated by the Wisconsin model.

FDR's Message to Congress

President Roosevelt's January 17, 1935 Message to Congress presents the intended foundation of his Social Security as a fully pre-funded compulsory contributory annuity system. Here's what he said:

>>" "In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/ces/ces3.html

Report of the Committee on Economic Security (January 1935)

President Roosevelt's Committee on Economic Security, which drafted the 1935 Social Security Act legislation, presented Social Security to Congress as a "compulsory, contributory system of old-age annuities".

Here's what the Committee's Report to Congress said:

>> "It is only through a compulsory, contributory system of old-age annuities that the burden upon future generations of the support of the aged can be lightened. With an increasing number and even more rapidly increasing percentage of the aged, the cost of supporting old persons will be a heavy load on future generations regardless of any legislation that may be enacted."

>> "... Explanation: The plan outlined above contemplates that workers who enter the system after the maximum contribution rate has become effective will receive annuities which have been paid for entirely by their own contributions and the matching contributions of their employers."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/ces/ces5.html

This isn't like a system in which "workers would pool their resources to help those who had already retired".

How Social Security Changed From FDR's System In Which Benefits Were to Have Been Fully Pre-Funded By the Contributions of the Workers Who Were To Receive Those Benefits

Read this description of the change in Social Security from a Congressional Budget Office Report titled "Social Security: A Primer" (Sept. 2001):

>> "From Social Security's earliest days, a contentious issue was whether the benefits that workers and their families received should be prefunded using the taxes that those workers paid, rather than the taxes paid by current workers. As the program was enacted in 1935, revenues dedicated to Social Security would have exceeded outlays by enough to build up very large surpluses. In effect, those excess revenues would have helped fund, in advance, the benefits that the same workers would receive later. Opponents of prefunding argued that such an arrangement would result either in pressure to increase spending or in federal government ownership of private assets. Later expansions to the program, along with postponement of increases in the payroll tax rate that were originally scheduled to occur during the 1940s, essentially moved Social Security to a pay-as-you-go basis."

CBO, "Social Security: A Primer" (Sept. 2001)

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3213&sequen [...]

FDR OPPOSED THE SHIFT OF HIS PRE-FUNDED SOCIAL INSURANCE SYSTEM TO THE PAY GO INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSFER SOCIAL SECURITY THAT WE NOW HAVE

>>> "The repeated onslaught of legislative repeals of scheduled increases in the payroll tax moved the program inexorably toward the pay-go approach. Not everyone was sanguine about this development. Although President Roosevelt had gone along with the 1939 Amendments' three-year delay in increasing the payroll tax, he opposed the subsequent delays. When Congress was considering the delay in the tax increase scheduled for January 1, 1943, FDR wrote to the chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees. He argued that "a failure to allow the scheduled increase in rates to take place under present favorable circumstances would cause a real and justifiable fear that adequate funds will not be accumulated to meet the heavy obligations of the future and that the claims for benefits accruing under the present law may be jeopardized." President Roosevelt vetoed the Revenue Act of 1943 because it included a delay in the payroll tax increase, but the veto was overturned. At the end of 1944, in signing H.R. 5565, which delayed the increase in the payroll tax from January 1, 1945, to January 1, 1946, the president noted in his accompanying statement, "I have felt in the past and I still feel that the scheduled rate increase, which has been repeatedly postponed by Congress, should be permitted to go into effect. The long-run financial requirements of the Social Security System justified adherence to the scheduled increases." When President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Social Security was well on its way to operating on the pay-go funding basis. Critics of the contemporary U.S. welfare state may have a lot to blame on FDR, but the documentary trail of historical evidence does not support their blaming him for saddling us with a pay-go Social Security system. He had condemned the immorality of running up large unfunded liabilities in the program in 1935."

Sylvester J. Schieber and John B. Shoven, "The Real Deal: The History and Future of Social Security" (Yale University Press 1999) pp. 85-86.

FDR OPPOSED THE SHIFT OF HIS PRE-FUNDED SOCIAL INSURANCE SYSTEM TO THE PAY GO INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSFER SOCIAL SECURITY THAT WE NOW HAVE

>>> "The repeated onslaught of legislative repeals of scheduled increases in the payroll tax moved the program inexorably toward the pay-go approach. Not everyone was sanguine about this development. Although President Roosevelt had gone along with the 1939 Amendments' three-year delay in increasing the payroll tax, he opposed the subsequent delays. When Congress was considering the delay in the tax increase scheduled for January 1, 1943, FDR wrote to the chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees. He argued that "a failure to allow the scheduled increase in rates to take place under present favorable circumstances would cause a real and justifiable fear that adequate funds will not be accumulated to meet the heavy obligations of the future and that the claims for benefits accruing under the present law may be jeopardized." President Roosevelt vetoed the Revenue Act of 1943 because it included a delay in the payroll tax increase, but the veto was overturned. At the end of 1944, in signing H.R. 5565, which delayed the increase in the payroll tax from January 1, 1945, to January 1, 1946, the president noted in his accompanying statement, "I have felt in the past and I still feel that the scheduled rate increase, which has been repeatedly postponed by Congress, should be permitted to go into effect. The long-run financial requirements of the Social Security System justified adherence to the scheduled increases." When President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Social Security was well on its way to operating on the pay-go funding basis. Critics of the contemporary U.S. welfare state may have a lot to blame on FDR, but the documentary trail of historical evidence does not support their blaming him for saddling us with a pay-go Social Security system. He had condemned the immorality of running up large unfunded liabilities in the program in 1935."

Sylvester J. Schieber and John B. Shoven, "The Real Deal: The History and Future of Social Security" (Yale University Press 1999) pp. 85-86.

There is a difference between (a) workers paying contributions to build up the means for their own old age support and (b) workers paying (pooling) taxes to support the current elderly. FDR supported the first (i.e., pre-funding) and opposed the second (i.e., pay go intergenerational transfer).

And FDR opposed it because pay go regressive payroll tax old age support was known to be unsustainable over the long term. This is alluded to in the January 1935 Report of the Committee on Economic Security in the statement "With an increasing number and even more rapidly increasing percentage of the aged, the cost of supporting old persons will be a heavy load on future generations regardless of any legislation that may be enacted..." It is noted by FDR in his letters to the Congressional leadership when he stated "the long-run financial requirements of the Social Security System justified adherence to the scheduled increases."

The Known Excessive Cost to Workers of Pay Go Social Security: Arthur Altmeyer - 1944

They knew long ago that the Social Security old age support system could not rely indefinitely upon returns from human capital (i.e., regressive payroll taxes) alone. Here's what Arthur Altmeyer (see http://www.ssa.gov/history/collectalt.html ) said about this back in 1944:

>>" (3) It is a mathematical certainty that the longer the present pay-roll tax rate remains in effect, the higher the future pay-roll tax must be if the insurance system continues to be financed wholly by payroll taxes. Therefore, the indefinite continuation of the present contribution rate (assuming the system is self-sustaining, and the costs are shared equally by the employees and employers) will eventually necessitate raising the employees' contribution rate later to a point where future beneficiaries will be obliged to pay more for their benefits than if they obtained this insurance from a private insurance company."

>> "(4) Retaining the present rate creates a moral obligation on the part of Congress to provide a Government subsidy later on to the extent necessary to avoid levying inequitably high pay-roll tax rates in the future. This obligation is recognized in the recent Murray amendment incorporated in section 201 (a) of the Social Security Act reading as follows: "There is also authorized to be appropriated to the trust fund such additional sums as may be required to finance the benefits and payments provided under this title."

http://www.ssa.gov/history/aja1144a.html

As an aside, it can be noted that Arthur Altmeyer had a doctorate in economics from Wisconsin. There, he had been a student of John Commons, one of the founders of the Wisconsin model of social insurance.

I don't remember the last Depression, (I'm going to be 50) but I know at least three people personally who were barely able to survive with their present Social Security benefits.  We're talking $600 a month with heart meds and so on costing about $400.  I also have seen firsthand how diabetes- and stroke-induced dementia make the old and sick victims to every scam in the book.  What the Republican Party is advocating is their usual brand of criminal cruelty and exploitation of the already suffering, and I will fight this with all I have no matter what was in FDR's brain at the time.

Numerian, beautiful work.

While I oppose mere "partial" privatization or any reform that continues paying current old age support benefits with regressive payroll taxes, even "liberal" authorities have reform plans utilizing private financial securities.

>>> (Aaron/Reischauer/Century Foundation) The Fiduciary Corporation. Organizational reforms could all but eliminate the risk that Social Security reserves cold be used to interfere with private investment decisions. Management of Social Security reserves could be placed in the hands of a private, not-for-profit entity created under federal charter - the Fiduciary Corporation (FC). The directors of the FC would consist of selected executives from the private sector and an independent government agency. Each would serve ex officio. For example, the federal charter might specify that the FC directors would include the president of one of the nation's largest insurance companies, the CEO of a major financial institution, the head of one of the leading stock exchanges, and the comptroller general from the General Accounting Office. .... To manage the trust funds' reserves, the power of the FC would be statutorily limited to selecting fund managers on the basis of competitive bids. The fund managers would be authorized to make passive investments in securities - bonds or stocks - of companies chosen to represent the broadest possible indexes. These investments would have to be merged with funds managed on behalf of private account holders. To prevent the FC or its fund managers from exercising any voice in management of private companies and FC share ownership from diluting control of private shareholders, Congress could insist on either of two precautions...

From: Henry J. Aaron & Robert D. Reischauer, "Countdown to Reform" (Century Foundation 2001 rev.), p. 122.

WASHINGTON | January 10, 2005    

As White House Begins Social Security Push, Critics Claim Exaggeration

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS   (NYT)   News  

excerpt:

....But opponents of Mr. Bush's approach say he is greatly exaggerating the problems to sell his plan to scale back Social Security, the government's biggest and oldest social program.

Outside analysts say Social Security's long-term financial gap, which the government estimates to be $3.7 trillion over 75 years, is smaller than the projected cost of Mr. Bush's tax cuts or the Medicare prescription drug program that he pushed through Congress in 2003.

The Social Security trust fund has accumulated more than $1.5 trillion in reserves, held in Treasury bonds. Even if no changes are made, the government's actuaries predict that the program will be able to pay full benefits until at least 2042 and at least 70 percent of benefits after that.

That is a far brighter outlook than in 1983, the last time Congress shored up Social Security, when the trust fund was just days from insolvency....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/politics/10social.html?ex=1263013200&en=140b4fb05eb60c5d&e
i=5090&partner=rssuserland

Graphic: An Urgent Crisis or a Fixable Problem?

NYT

OPINION | January 11, 2005    

The Iceberg Cometh

By PAUL KRUGMAN   (NYT)   Op-Ed

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html

beginning excerpt:

ast week someone leaked a memo written by Peter Wehner, an aide to Karl Rove, about how to sell Social Security privatization. The public, says Mr. Wehner, must be convinced that "the current system is heading for an iceberg."

It's the standard Bush administration tactic: invent a fake crisis to bully people into doing what you want. "For the first time in six decades," the memo says, "the Social Security battle is one we can win." One thing I haven't seen pointed out, however, is the extent to which the White House expects the public and the media to believe two contradictory things.

The administration expects us to believe that drastic change is needed, and needed right away, because of the looming cost of paying for the baby boomers' retirement.

The administration expects us not to notice, however, that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions, the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next 45 years, privatization would cost much more money than it saved.

Advocates of privatization almost always pretend that all we have to do is borrow a bit of money up front, and then the system will become self-sustaining. The Wehner memo talks of borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion "to cover transition costs." Similar numbers have been widely reported in the news media.

But that's just the borrowing over the next decade. Privatization would cost an additional $3 trillion in its second decade, $5 trillion in the decade after that and another $5 trillion in the decade after that. By the time privatization started to save money, if it ever did, the federal government would have run up around $15 trillion in extra debt.

These numbers are based on a Congressional Budget Office analysis of Plan 2, which was devised by a special presidential commission in 2001 and is widely expected to be the basis for President Bush's plan.

Under Plan 2, payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts while future benefits would be cut. In the short run, this would worsen the budget deficit. In the long run, if all went well, cutting benefit payments would reduce the deficit.

All wouldn't go well; I'll explain why in another column. But suppose that everything went according to plan. Even in that unlikely case, privatization wouldn't even begin to reduce the budget deficit until 2050. This is supposed to be the answer to an imminent crisis?....

Bush to Congress: Pass Social Security Reform or Risk Your Jobs

By Nedra Pickler Associated Press Writer

Published: Jan 11, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush tried to increase pressure on members of Congress who are leery of his ideas to change Social Security by telling them Tuesday they could be risking their jobs.

"I happen to believe people who have been elected to office who ignore problems will face a price at the ballot box," Bush said during a forum with voters who support his goal of creating private investment accounts to partly replace guaranteed benefits.

Democrats say that they, too, will make an issue of Social Security in the midterm elections. "Republicans should be worried," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Jano Cabrera. "Whether Republicans are cutting benefits, raising taxes, or further exploding the budget deficit, Democrats intend to make Social Security a key issue in 2006."

Social Security is projected to start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2018, according to Social Security trustees but will be able to pay full promised benefits until 2042. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected the program will be solvent until 2052.

The president wants to revamp the government retirement program by letting younger workers divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal investment accounts, although he has not provided details of his proposal. Many Democrats are unwilling to give Bush a chance to cut guaranteed benefits and question how setting up personal investment accounts will fix the system's solvency problem.

Bush said he realizes some lawmakers see "too much political danger" in changing the nation's retirement system. With renewed political confidence after re-election, Bush has said he will try to give cover to those who support an overhaul and make it politically risky for those who oppose him.

"Members who will work, constructively work with us will be able to look back and say, 'I did my duty. I came to Washington to be more than just a place holder,'" Bush said.

"Some are afraid to touch it, some don't want to touch it, some provide excuses not to touch it," he said. "I know, I've heard it before. But I believe that the president has a responsibility for setting the agenda." He said members of Congress have "an obligation to confront problems head on."

more at:

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBROHYOU3E.html

a lotta privatize pointyheads and a coupla antis all yellin at the same time:-)

http://www.ncpa.org/video/trans/404.html

DebatesDebates

#404 Should Social Security Be Privatized?

July 14, 1999

-----------------------------------------

(no replies on this bedlam needed)

reported from my diary. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting:

--------------------------------------------

Gustavo González | December 20,2004  |IPS | Santiago,Chile

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=26744

Changes to pension systems in Latin America have heightened gender-based discrimination and will lead to greater poverty and vulnerability among women if corrective measures are not adopted, according to Sonia Montaño, chief of the ECLAC Women and Development Unit.

Montaño and Flavia Marco, another specialist from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), coordinated studies in six countries of the region that confirmed the negative impact on women of one of the principal forms of "modernisation" promoted by the free-market, "neoliberal" economic model.

By nymole in Diaries on Mon Jan 3rd, 2005

The beginning of this thread starts with the following quote from FDR:

>>> (FDR) "No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement."

[Albany, N.Y., - February 28, 1929 - Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to N.Y. State Legislature]

The irony is that pay go Social Security will be the primary cause of just this result for millions and millions of elderly members of the baby boomer and younger generations.

By depriving these generations of critical first dollar resources needed to build their own families, lives, businesses and savings for their own old age support - in order to provide excess, unprovided for above poverty level support to the elderly of prior generations, pay go Social Security will condemn them to just the fate FDR decried.  

I've been away so's I just skimmed this thread. wmhart1 appears to be intelligent, well-spoken, knowledgible, if opinionated on the issue.  I am indeed interested in SS, but you gotta admit it is essentially a sleep-inducing issue.  We'll hear much much more in the coming months; maybe boredom is Bush's ace up the wazoo.  

Dear Numerian

I didn't quite have the time to get to my responses to the last of your six areas of questions presented to me above... and now it seems that a number of persons here don't want to see me post any more answers.  

Perhaps this isn't the place for the discussion.

Best regards

Dear MoveOn member,

Social Security is the crown jewel of progressive government -- a singular achievement that has reshaped what used to be penniless old age. Now George Bush and Republican leaders have made phasing out Social Security as we know it through privatization and massive benefit cuts their top priority for 2005.

Even House Republicans are skeptical about the scheme. According to a recent Washington Post article, as many as 40 Republican members are considering voting against it. So the final vote is likely to be extremely close, and Bush and the Wall Street firms that stand to make billions are pulling out all the stops. According to some reports, they're raising up to $100 million for advertising to apply pressure.

Bush started his publicity blitz on Tuesday, and now the clock is ticking for House and Senate members to state their position. We need to send them a message before it is too late. Let your members of Congress know that you want them to protect Social Security by signing our petition at the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

Our goal is to deliver 200,000 signatures on a petition to Congress when they return after the January 20 inauguration. That is a big goal in such a short time but we know that you can help make it happen by forwarding this alert to your friends, family and coworkers.

In pushing this issue, Bush is working out of the same play book that he used for the war in Iraq. First, he's manufacturing a crisis, by grossly distorting the scale of the threat. Then, when Americans are convinced that the problem is clear and imminent, he'll propose a reckless solution -- privatization -- which just happens to help a lot of his corporate friends.

And of course, the gap between Bush's rhetoric and the truth is enormous. Social Security is a complicated issue, but the basics are really pretty simple:

Social Security provides monthly benefits to some 44 million Americans who are retired, disabled or the survivor of a deceased parent. It provides most of the income for older Americans -- some 64 percent of their support. It has lifted generations of seniors out of poverty.

Social Security is not in crisis. That is an outright lie perpetrated in order to create the urgency for radical changes. Under conservative forecasts, the long-term challenges in Social Security do not manifest themselves until 2042. Even then Social Security has 70 percent of needed funds. That shortfall is smaller than the amount needed in 1983, the last time we overhauled Social Security. George Bush's Social Security crisis-talk is an effort to create a specter of doom -- just like the weapons of mass destruction claim in Iraq.

Phasing out Social Security and replacing it with privatized accounts means one thing: massive cuts in monthly benefits for everybody. Social Security privatization requires diverting taxes used to pay current benefits into privatized accounts invested in risky stocks. Without that money, Social Security benefits will inevitably be cut -- some proposals even cut benefits of current retirees. These benefit cuts are inevitable, since diverting Social Security money into privatized accounts means less money to pay current and future benefits.

Every serious privatization proposal raises the Social Security retirement age to 70. That might be fine if you're a Washington special interest lobbyist but it is incredibly unfair to blue-collar Americans with tough, physical jobs, or for African Americans and Latinos with lower life expectancies.

Privatization means gambling with your retirement security. There is probably an appropriate place for a little stock market risk in retirement planning -- but it isn't Social Security. Privatization exposes your entire retirement portfolio to stock market risks -- and the risk that you'll outlive any of your savings at retirement. You can't outlive your Social Security benefit.

So who does benefit? Wall Street. Giant financial services firms have been salivating for decades over the prospect of taking over Social Security. Wall Street would make billions of dollars in profit by managing the privatized accounts -- money that would come directly from your benefits.

So far, the Democrats are united in the cause of protecting Social Security. If the Democrats are going to show some real backbone we need to back them. Show your support by signing the petition at the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/socialsecurity/

And after signing the petition, please help debunk the misinformation that's circulating by forwarding this email on to your friends and family.

Thanks for all you do.

--Tom Matzzie and Eli Pariser

  MoveOn.org

  January 13th, 2005

P.S.: For more information, here are some good resources:

Campaign for America's Future on Social Security

http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/socialsecurity/index.cfm

The Social Security Network by The Century Foundation

http://www.socsec.org/

"The Iceberg Cometh" by Paul Krugman. The New York Times. January 11, 2005 (registration required)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html?ex=1263272400&en=a6842a621ebe11ad&e
i=5088&partner=rssnyt

"Bush Launches PR Campaign to change Social Security" by Richard Benedetto and Judy Keen, USA TODAY January 11, 2005

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-11-bush-social-security_x.htm?csp=34

You have hijacked and ,yes,privatized this thread with a vengeance, whatever your motive.

Reexamine the concept of the "common good" and how it applies to public discourse here.

There is an empty diary in the agonist for wmhart1 that you can use, as many others including myself have used to express their detailed opinions on continuing topics.

The instructions are easy to follow and the location gives you a blog of your own.

NYT for 1/16 publication

Agency Running Social Security to Push Change

By ROBERT PEAR  12:13 PM ET

The Social Security Administration is preparing a major public relations campaign to market the idea that Social Security faces dire financial problems requiring immediate action and private accounts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/politics/16benefit.html?

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is on the right track regarding Social Security Reform.  

See his op-ed article at the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/opinion/16oneill.html?hp

John M. Berry

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's assertions that Social Security faces a crisis and is ``flat bust, bankrupt'' are patently false.

Bush and other administration officials are greatly exaggerating potential problems facing the program to push through changes that would undermine the most successful social insurance program in the nation's history.

The system is so far from crisis or bankruptcy that the truly prudent course at this point most certainly would be to make no changes in Social Security at all. Wait and see if even under conservative assumptions the date at which the system's trust fund would be exhausted keeps receding.

In 1994, Social Security trustees put that date at 2030 using their intermediate projection, the middle one of three. By 2004, 10 years later, the date had been pushed out 12 years, to 2042. And even after that, 75 percent of promised benefits could still be paid.

That's neither a looming crisis nor bankruptcy.

Bush has no intention of being prudent. Instead, he obviously wants to undermine confidence in the program to create a political climate in which Congress will approve diverting a portion of the payroll tax that funds Social Security to individual accounts for workers with the money invested in equities and corporate and government bonds.

By assuming unrealistically high returns on equities, the private accounts are being sold as a way to make up for the alleged inability of Social Security to pay promised benefits in the future.

Wehner Memo

Unfortunately for Bush, earlier this month a memo written by Peter Wehner, his director of strategic initiatives, appeared in the newsletter Congress Daily and has since been widely quoted.

``You may know that there is a small number of conservatives who prefer to push only for investment accounts and make no effort to adjust benefits -- therefore making no effort to address (the) fundamental problem'' in Social Security, Wehner said. ``In my judgment, that's a bad idea.''

In other words, private accounts would not fix the allegedly ``bankrupt'' system. Since no one working for Bush is about to suggest taxes be raised, the only alternative would be to reduce benefits. All the Washington chatter is about freezing the real value of benefits at their present average level of about $1,200 a month. Currently, benefits are indexed annually for both inflation and real wages.

More:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_berry&sid=aJ9dbBFwsZ1k

Paul Krugman | New York | January 21

NYT - Did they believe they would be welcomed as liberators? Administration plans to privatize Social Security have clearly run into unexpected opposition. Even Republicans are balking; Representative Bill Thomas says that the initial Bush plan will soon be a "dead horse."

That may be overstating it, but for privatizers the worst is yet to come. If people are rightly skeptical about claims that Social Security faces an imminent crisis, just wait until they start looking closely at the supposed solution.

President Bush is like a financial adviser who tells you that at the rate you're going, you won't be able to afford retirement - but that you shouldn't do anything mundane like trying to save more. Instead, you should take out a huge loan, put the money in a mutual fund run by his friends (with management fees to be determined later) and place your faith in capital gains.

That, once you cut through all the fine phrases about an "ownership society," is how the Bush privatization plan works. Payroll taxes would be diverted into private accounts, forcing the government to borrow to replace the lost revenue. The government would make up for this borrowing by reducing future benefits; yet workers would supposedly end up better off, in spite of reduced benefits, through the returns on their accounts.

The whole scheme ignores the most basic principle of economics: there is no free lunch.

There are several ways to explain why this particular lunch isn't free, but the clearest comes from Michael Kinsley, editorial and opinion editor of The Los Angeles Times. He points out that the math of Bush-style privatization works only if you assume both that stocks are a much better investment than government bonds and that somebody out there in the private sector will nonetheless sell those private accounts lots of stocks while buying lots of government bonds.

So privatizers are in effect asserting that politicians are smart - they know that stocks are a much better investment than bonds - while private investors are stupid, and will swap their valuable stocks for much less valuable government bonds. Isn't such an assertion very peculiar coming from people who claim to trust markets?

When I ask privatizers that question, I get two responses.

One is that the diversion of revenue into private accounts doesn't have to lead to government borrowing, that the money can come from, um, someplace else. Of course, many schemes look good if you assume that they will be subsidized with large sums shipped in from an undisclosed location.

Alternatively, they point out that stocks on average were a very good investment over the last several decades. But remember the disclaimer that mutual funds are obliged to include in their ads: "past performance is no guarantee of future results."

Fifty years ago most people, remembering 1929, were afraid of the stock market. As a result, those who did buy stocks got to buy them cheap: on average, the value of a company's stock was only about 13 times that company's profits. Because stocks were cheap, they yielded high returns in dividends and capital gains.

But high returns always get competed away, once people know about them: stocks are no longer cheap. Today, the value of a typical company's stock is more than 20 times its profits. The more you pay for an asset, the lower the rate of return you can expect to earn. That's why even Jeremy Siegel, whose "Stocks for the Long Run" is often cited by those who favor stocks over bonds, has conceded that "returns on stocks over bonds won't be as large as in the past."

But a very high return on stocks over bonds is essential in privatization schemes; otherwise private accounts created with borrowed money won't earn enough to compensate for their risks. And if we take into account realistic estimates of the fees that mutual funds will charge - remember, in Britain those fees reduce workers' nest eggs by 20 to 30 percent - privatization turns into a lose-lose proposition.

Sometimes I do find myself puzzled: why don't privatizers understand that their schemes rest on the peculiar belief that there is a giant free lunch there for the taking? But then I remember what Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

I was thinking about this very point when writing the article.  Since poverty among the elderly was already serious and endemic by the 1920's, I suspect something was already happening to dissolve the extended family.  The industrial revolution of the 19th century was one contributing factor, as farm families began to be broken up when young adults would leave for more attractive jobs in the cities.

Secondly, by 1920 the U.S. had experienced the greatest influx of immigrants of any nation up to that time.  This process was accomplished in steps.  A father or son would leave Italy to find a new life in New York, sharing rooms with other immigrants in overcrowded tenements in New York.  Eventually other members of the family would join them - but usually the elderly would be left behind in Italy.  In that respect, the extended family would not be created in the U.S. - or would be created only partway - and the elderly would be left without immediate family support back in Italy.

I suspect this pattern is continuing with today's immigrants to the U.S.  The elderly remain behind in Mexico while the sons and daughters support them through remittances of dollars.

But your point about Social Security causing or contributing to the break-up of the extended family must be true as well.  The mutualization of financial responsibility for one's parents by all of society's workers has to give the parents the flexibility to remain on their own for much longer into their retirement.  These days retired people rejoin their children only for reasons of bad health - not because they have run out of retirement money.

Notice too that there is something of a wealth transfer going on, since FICA taxes are taken out on salary up to $90,000.  Higher-paid workers are paying more into the system and thus providing for the retirement needs of parents of workers earning $40,000 or less.

Whatever these effects have been, they have been small compared to those resulting from women entering the work force in the 1970's.  The two earner family which is now so common has really put a strain on the nuclear family model of wife, husband and children.  Counterbalancing this is the introduction of a different type of extended family composed of in-laws, step-parents, etc.  Divorce and remarriage has brought about many families that are composites of unrelated children.  Maybe you could say that the nuclear family doesn't exist in substantial form, but as compensation people now have many more step-children to turn to for help in their old age.

You write: "FDR's "social security" freed the sons and daughters of America from having to support the elders in their family."

First, the pay go, intergenerational transfer, regressive payroll tax version of Social Security was principally a creature of conservative Republican opposition to FDR's plan for a fully pre-funded old age support system.  Conservative Republicans did not want the federal government to have control over so much of the nation's economic wealth as would have been necessary under FDR's collective investment account approach to old age support.

Second, it would be more accurate to state that pay go Social Security imposed the additional burden on children of providing support, not only to their parents, but also to those elderly who had never reared them and perhaps had never even reared any children.  In other words, pay go Social Security de-linked the required investment in the rearing of children from the "right" to receive the benefits of the support of "children" in old age.  

I was thinking on several of your points as well! Even to the point where I was going to recommend the movie "Avalon" as an enjoyable entertainment vehicle that sort of addresses some of them well:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1031472-avalon/

But I thought better of it and erased that, because I thought some might think it silly! But now that you bring up the immigrant thing, I do recommend the movie for those who haven't studied history on some of the mid-20th-century changes. (Television came at a crucial time, it was the new "hearth"--the movie addresses this well. But it also does a good job on the generational change from immigrant extended to nuclear.)

Sorry if I am taking this too far off-topic. It's just stuff that interests me. And I do want "social security" for the reasons I mentioned! I believe it helps furnish the "freedom" that conservatives are always yammering about!

I thought something basic was missing in all the Social Security discussion, which has focused so far on supposed funding crises in 2018 or 2042 or even further out. So I went back to the debates in the 1930's about the program and learned that it was always viewed by the Democrats as a form of old age insurance.  A nationwide insurance program involving all workers and employers is a very powerful form of risk reduction.  Somehow in their complete hatred for anything the federal government does, the Republicans missed out on the efficiency and you might even say intellectual beauty of the program, which has been enormously successful.  In fact modern Democrats seem to have forgotten the basic premise as well, and aren't doing a good job reminding workers that they already have 401k's and IRA's and don't need another investment program because none of these will ever guarantee them lifetime coverage (unless you are in that small minority who are very wealthy). Workers need a combination of national insurance for basic, lifetime living expenses in retirement (Social Security), plus their own investment programs which they already have.  Leave well enough alone, because if SS ceases to be a nation-wide program it falls apart and poverty slips back in through the back door.

"freedom" meme, perhaps provoke your own thought on it more, as you know this angle better.

In my first comment, the way I phrased it limited the idea that this social insurance gave "freedom" to people from extended families, but really, I was thinking it was also

freedom from risk.

as most insurance does!

Social security took some of the onus of worry about old age off of society, so that people felt free to take more risk with their savings and money!

There are upsides and downsides to the results, of course, but it certainly could be shown that it made for more "freedom" of the capitalist type that conservatives like to yammer about!

In my mind, there are certain basic needs that, if protected from the vagaries of the capitalist system, allow capitalism to be pursued more aggressively and healthily!

(I happen to think national health coverage would do this, too. If one thinks of car insurance, for example, required by law for people who want to drive--car insurance was necessary once there were a lot of cars in order to keep many people from being fearful of driving. If there wasn't car insurance, the more circumspect, careful types would not take the risk of driving, as they would be afraid of losing all if sued.)

Worthy of the Agonist Exclusive designation and a front page slot.

Dear Numerian

Pay go, regressive payroll tax, intergenerational transfer Social Security old age support is primarily a conservative Republican-originated program.

Conservative Republicans of the late 1930s and early 1940s, primarily Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg, vehemently opposed FDR's vision for a Social Security collective account building huge reserves using worker contributions.  And it was principally conservative Republicans who killed FDR's vision for this type of fully pre-funded "investment"-based system of old age support.

Conservative Republicans, with the assistance of some liberal Democrats, killed FDR's vision for Social Security by postponing contribution rate increases scheduled by the original 1935 legislation.  Thus, instead of the collective account growing to pre-fund those workers' future benefits, it instead became a type of checking account in which benefit flowed in and then immediately out again to pay current old age support benefits.  

FDR opposed pay go intergenerational transfer old age support because it was known to be unsustainable over the long term.

To just drop the whole idea, but being close to retirement kept me motivated.

Robert Scheer | The Nation | January 3 web edition

The GOP's Sabotage of Social Security

[posted online on December 21, 2004]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050103&s=scheer1221

Just my luck: I finally get to be a senior citizen only to discover that the President considers my longevity a grave threat to the nation. Apparently, my collecting Social Security checks for as long as I have left on this Earth is going to help bankrupt the economy and/or be an unbearable burden on young Americans.

That's why, after seven decades of unmitigated success in protecting seniors from the vagaries of market forces, the White House now wants to turn Social Security itself over to the vagaries of market forces. The conservative mantra, whether it comes to energy policy, war in Iraq or education, is to siphon public money into the private sector whenever and wherever possible, through such gimmicks as agribusiness subsidies, school vouchers and the hiring of private mercenaries.

Greed perfectly meshes with ideology in the Republican Party, and the attempted sabotage of Social Security is just another example. While the followers of Milton Friedman talk about the free market in religious terms, Wall Street is slavering at the possibility of one of the biggest potential windfalls in human history if the Social Security spigot is turned its way. The attendant investment fees alone would be enormous--certainly higher than the minimal 1 percent overhead costs the current Social Security system consumes.

What's astonishing is that despite the recent spate of abrupt corporate bankruptcies and Wall Street corruption scandals, the President would have us believe only stockbrokers can save Social Security, and the stability of the entire fund would be tied to a stock market that has been known to tank now and again. Further, even the President's key advisors admit that the short-run cost of "privatizing" Social Security would add trillions of dollars to the Bush legacy of federal government red ink.

While I am all for expanding opportunities to invest in tax- deferred retirement accounts (like 401k's), it does not follow that Social Security should be exposed to the same risks. Social Security is the safety net for the elderly that has since its inception protected millions from facing abject poverty upon retirement--even if their pensions should evaporate, as they did for the employees of Enron.

Along with Medicare, Social Security is the key reason seniors are no longer the most impoverished class in our society or a crushing burden on their children. This last needs to be mentioned to counter the argument that ensuring the security of baby boom seniors would impose an intolerable burden on younger workers. For who is going to replace those Social Security checks, should they stop coming because Grandpa picked the wrong stock? The kids and grandkids, that's who, if they have any real family values.

I speak out of an experience I'm sure many of you share. My mother retired after forty years as a garment worker, after which she lived with me until she died at the thankfully old age of 88. Her presence was of great emotional value to our family, but because of her two-decade bout with Parkinson's, it would have represented a serious financial burden on my wife and me had it not been for government support.

The President says the system that has served us well in the past is no longer sustainable. He, or rather those cooking the books for him, attempts to scare us with projections that the Social Security trust fund will begin to run deficits thirty-eight years from now.

But those numbers assume no dramatic change in the increasing ability of seniors to retire later and otherwise continue to earn income that is taxable. The anti-Social Security crowd is trying to make this a young-versus-old generational fight, even though seniors still pay taxes like anybody else. We even pay taxes on most of our Social Security earnings, if our household income rises above a pittance.

If the President is truly worried about the federal coffers running dry he should stop cutting taxes for us better-off folk and stop spending so much money on boondoggles like the occupation of Iraq. However, if it turns out that we need additional taxes to cover the obligations of the Social Security trust fund four decades from now, so be it. After all, money distributed to the elderly through Social Security is poured right back into the economy.

For three-quarters of a century, Social Security has guaranteed us all a life of modest dignity as we live out the end of this mortal coil.

So--if you'll pardon this senior's use of a curmudgeonly truism--I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Dear Numerian

It is unfortunate that you did not come across "The Real Deal: The History and Future of Social Security" (Yale University Press 1999) by Sylvester Schieber and John Shoven, before writing your article.  In my opinion it is the best book, and perhaps the only book with the real history of how FDR's fully pre-funded system of old age support was corrupted into the pay go, intergenerational transfer system that we now have.  

As noted in another post here, Sylvester Schieber has been a member of the Social Security Advisory Board, having been appointed by President Clinton in 1998.  

FDR's Social Security system would have been a fully pre-funded "investment" type system of old age support, which would have utilized the Social Security Trust Fund as a "collective account", in contrast to the individual account systems now under consideration.  

...the plan to privatize social security makes allowances for streetside solicitations and will generously provide the pencil cups.

Supporters of the status quo for Social Security often tout the benefit of the program to younger generations. But this is propaganda.

First, they talk about Social Security Disability Insurance (DI).  But DI is a separate program funded with a 1.8% payroll tax rate, and most reform plans don't talk about eliminating DI.  The Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program is funded with a 10.6% payroll tax rate.

While OASI does include survivors' benefits for the minor children of deceased workers, the cost of all benefits that might flow to younger workers and their families under OASI totals less than .5% of payroll.  That's right, the benefits of the Social Security OASI program that go to younger workers and their families are a minimal cost component of the OASI program.

The Social Security Trustees project that Social Security will be able to pay only 73% of promised benefits by 2042, declining to only 68% of promised benefits in 2078.  http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR04/II_project.html#wp105057

Don't let the tail wag the dog that won't hunt.

Best regards

Whereas an insurance company has strict safeguards imposed by regulators over how they can invest their premiums received, Republicans are proposing that these safeguards be eliminated and that - moreover - the beneficiaries be able to dictate how the insurance company invests each beneficiary's premiums.

All of this is dressed up in the cloak of "ownership" and "investor control", as if Social Security was your personal mutual fund.  Here's an example - the conclusion of David Brooks's column today in the NY Times:

First, Social Security reform should liberate our kids, not shackle them. It should eliminate the fiscal overhang so they have the money to tackle the problems that will arise in their own day.

Second, the reform should be transparent, so that people can see what kind of return they are getting on the money they put into the system. People should have information about their own lives.

Third, it should enhance people's control over their own retirement. In a self-governing democracy, citizens should do for themselves what they can do for themselves.

Fourth, people should be encouraged to work longer. In an age in which many live into their 90's, we should be making better use of people in their 70's and 80's.

Fifth, we need a savings revolution. The plan should encourage the nation to save more, to create more capital for America's future greatness.

The closest I can get to an analogy of "investment" for Social Security is the whole life insurance product.  But even here, your insurance component - the death benefit - typically expires at age 75, and the cash build up is paid out in a lump sum.  There is no promise to pay for as long as you live.  This is what makes the basic function of Social Security a unique form of insurance and not one the private sector could handle as efficiently as the federal government.

What David Brooks is describing completely misconstrues the role of Social Security.  And he's supposedly one of the more responsible conservative columnists.

I favor fundamental reform of Social Security to a system of mandatory individual retirement accounts. Regressive payroll taxes should no longer be used at all to provide current old age support benefits.

However, I believe that there should be substantial government regulation and oversight of such a system, as well as enhanced enforcement of existing and new corporate responsiblity legislation.  

I don't have personal experience with it, but I believe the Federal Employees Retirement System would provide a good model for a mandatory individual retirement account system.

It was known back in the 1930s and 1940s that it would take a long time for a regressive payroll tax funded pay go old age support system to fail.

In 1939, when Congress postponed the first scheduled rate increase, Edwin Witte, Executive Director of the Committee on Economic Security that drafted the 1935 Social Security Act, voiced his concerns about the postponement on the long term financing of the sytem to J. Douglas Brown.  

Brown was a Priceton economics professor and also a member of the Committee on Economic Security.

In response to Witte's expression of deep concern for the long term insolvency of pay go Social Security, what did J. Douglas Brown say?

J. Douglas Brown said: "We will all be dead."