Obama gets Social Security facts wrong

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/11/927904/-Obama-gets-Social-Security-facts-wrong?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Twitter


Here's a book that needs to be on President Obama's immediate reading list: Nancy Altman's excellent The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision To Bush's Gamble. In it, Altman dispels the kind of Zombie Social Security lies that have been showing up in President Obama's talking points. Dan Froomkin has the details on how he got its history wrong.

At the press conference (see the transcript), Obama defended his controversial decision to give in to Republican demands for a massive tax cut for the rich on the grounds that "in order to get stuff done, we're going to compromise."

His prime example: "This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people."

....

Obama's overall point -- that Social Security wasn't born fully grown -- was exactly right. But his facts were exactly wrong. The Social Security Act, as first signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935, paid retirement benefits to the primary worker -- and not to their widows and orphans. It wasn't until a 1939 change that the law added benefits for survivors and for the retiree's spouse and children.

The system was set up specifically not as welfare for the neediest, aid to widows and children. It was set up as an insurance program for every American worker, into which every American worker paid, and done so for very smart political and policy reasons. Here's how Altman describes that history:

More at the link ---

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That's why he gets his FDR facts wrong.

he is not fdr
he is not a republican
his is not god

he is a democrat ........ and I do not like his policies

Insanely-hateful Obama appointee Alan Simpson uses this lie to make the case that Social Security has strayed from its original intent, and needs to be pared back.

Note that Obama also used this lie on the Daily Show a few weeks. It's clearly an important talking point.

then held a press conference.

to a "deficit" commission.

Yes?

of "Obama sucks" threads. Unoriginal, derivative, and completely lame (but totally predictable).

Speaking of myths, it has been really disconcerting that I am supposed to be glad about getting a cut in the SS payroll tax which decreases revenue to Social Security, after hearing that the Supply-Side-Dominated Deficit Commission is recommending cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

He should study the history of Social Security before speaking about it.

And not a book provided by Social Security opponents.

SOCIAL SECURITY'S HUMBLE ORIGINS
Steve Benen
December 10, 2010

I'm loath to disagree with Krugman, and it's clear that the president's assessment was at best incomplete, but my read on social insurance history is slightly different.

On Medicare, Krugman's right, it was pretty ambitious at its start. It all but ignored people with disabilities, it didn't cover prescription drugs, and made no allowances for home health services, but in general, Medicare started quite strong.

Social Security, however, is another story -




John Judis noted earlier this year that the original Social Security Act "was a bare shell of what it became in the 1950s after amendment. Benefits were nugatory. And most important, coverage was denied to wide swaths of the workforce."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027029.php

and that is still the vast bulk of where its payments go.

Why are so many trying to deny it?

That seems to be the point people are trying to make, somewhat awkwardly at best. It was built on over the years to what it is today.

Agree, the original intent was retirees and the bulk of recipients today remain retirees.

:hi:

Social Security a great deal under his reign. Now we have President Obama threatening it's future. A very sad state of affairs.

cite: http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/social-security.htm

- benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death.

- funding to states for:

-- assistance to aged individuals (Title I),

-- unemployment insurance (Title III),

-- Aid to Families with Dependent Children (Title IV),

-- Maternal and Child Welfare (Title V),

-- public health services (Title VI),

-- the blind (Title X).<10>

AGE FOR FULL BENEFITS = 62


1939 AMENDMENTS:

- added wives, elderly widows, and dependent survivors of covered male workers to those who could receive old age pensions.


1950 AMENDMENTS:

- added part-time, domestic, non-profit, self-employed


1954 AMENDMENTS:

- added agricultural workers, hotel & laundry, state & local government


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)

:thumbsup:

with disregard to truth and facts/history/research. He simply employs the DLC/New Dem talking points and is a company man.
What we might call a sell-out. A 3rd way corporatist. You cannot believe a word he says.

He said he was a New Democrat, and he's definitely proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt!

I would have thought it an honest mistake.

Two old newsreel videos about social security. Just click the images to view:

:kick:

:kick:

:kick:

"It was set up as an insurance program for every American worker, into which every American worker paid, and done so for very smart political and policy reasons. "

If you're going to write a fact-checking article, it helps to know the facts. There are a few whoppers in this one.

From the folks at DU to President Obama