Congress – Hands Off Our Social Security!!

by Rick Tingling-Clemmons, Business Manager, GPMW

 

         Social Security was passed in 1935 to provide a form of Economic Security to address the need to support workers after the end of their work lives with resources provided in largest part by the workers themselves. The backdrop for the creation of this program was the Great Depression, which created a level of fear to which this was a response. All peoples throughout all of human history have faced the uncertainties brought on by unemployment, illness, disability, death and old age. In the realm of economics, these inevitable facets of life are said to be threats to one's economic security.

 

        According to the Social Security Administration history, “The original Social Security Act, signed into law on August 14, 1935, grew out of the work of the Committee on Economic Security, a cabinet-level group appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt just one year earlier. [Not surprising that this revisionist history is what is recorded, but the provisions and ideas were in fact developed by the workers who were to be served by the program.] The Act created several programs that, even today, form the basis for the government's role in providing income security, specifically, the old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs. The old-age program is, of course, the precursor to today's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, or Social Security, program. Unemployment insurance continues to this day, and AFDC is the forerunner to the current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] program [with its distinctly anti-poor anti-family construct and provisions]. The original Act also provided federal support for means-tested old-age assistance programs run by the states, [generally a problem because ‘state-controlled’ became a euphemism for ‘white-controlled’ and a strategy to support white supremacy] which were eventually transformed into the current Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The original Act also contained provisions allowing for research on the topic of health insurance, but the Medicare program would not come into existence until 30 years later.”

       

          That same history reported that the original program covered workers in only about half the jobs in the country, those in commerce and industry. This meant that at its inception, this program codified the limitations of this exploitative economic system – capitalism – by defining it in a way that was racist and sexist, failing as it did to cover workers in fields of work populated primarily by people of color and women - agriculture, service, child care, home care, health care, education, and the social service industry. Some of those ‘errors’ have since been corrected through the agitation and action of the workers and their unions.

 

          This Social Security system, even in its initiation was opposed by the rich through their role in corporations, dominance of the country’s economic system and Congress, or control by all three branches.  

 

            At sometime during the 1980s, SS was taken completely out of the hands of our class when it was completely taken over by the rich through Congress – which is made up principally of the rich.  It is a shame that a program such as Social Security, which was created for the working class, is controlled by the rich, who make little to no contributions to it – other than robbing its coffers to cover the inadequacies of its failed budgeting process and inability of this rotten economic system to care for its principal resource, its people.

 

       As I am struggling against populism (unintelligent [unscientific] and undemocratic), globalism and tribalism, these ideas are antithetical to our core beliefs, the right to life, liberty and happiness for ALL Americans. The hero in a real democratic system is the one who stands up against the mob, not vice versa.

 

            Nationalism can be good in small doses, but it can go too far; by doubling down on nationalism it is antithetical to democracy and becomes populism [i.e., white supremacy]. Some people are saying they don’t know where capitalism came from, but even a brief study of history would reveal names like Adam Smith; Oliver Cromwell’s revolution; Frederick Engels; Karl Marx, all of which provide a clear historical explanation of capitalism and from whence it emerged. We as a country failed to democratize capitalism so it could truly be of the people, by the people and for the people; therefore, it only serves a few, the 1%, and has a dominant effect on all of our institutions, including Social Security. We know that a true democracy requires an educated electorate; and in a country where close to 50% cannot read and write the language that they speak (a note from their child’s teacher or a warning on a can of pesticides), democracy is impossible, and therefore a sham. What we do have and live under is thus not a democracy but a dictatorship of the rich.

 

          Together we can create all the necessary goods and services – including Social Security – that we need, and a world where no one has to suffer the injustice of poverty, hunger, homelessness, sickness, unemployment, or disease. Let’s build a better world together, with workers – whether unemployed, employed, semi-employed, uncompensated, laid off – at the helm. The problems that we as a class face (the 99%), will only and can only be resolved by us, the working class. To quote one of our local ancestors, the eminent publisher Calvin Rolark, “If it is to be, it is up to me!”

 

ADDENDUM – A glimpse of the Financial Aspects of Social Security

 

    Social Security was designed as a self-funded entity, and was NEVER designed to be part of the Federal government’s budgeting process. Then, it was first raided to help balance the budget by the feds, who ‘borrowed’ against it (starting with the John F. Kennedy administration and repeated by each succeeding administration) and never paid it back, either with or without interest!

 

          As we proceed it must be clearly understood that Social Security is NOT an Entitlement program – just like Unemployment Compensation is not an entitlement program. That term – entitlement – is used in the misinformation campaign that the government (at the urging of the 1%) has been using for a number of years to set us up to accept their scheme to privatize the system, to steal our money. But, when we hear privatize – meaning only a few folks own, we say Nationalize – meaning when we ALL own. Think about that! Why don’t we follow in the footsteps of many of our European and Scandinavian brothers and sisters who have nationalized most social services (like Britain’s health care system, Sweden’s health care, child care and parental leave systems, etc.) and other necessities. Too many of us have begun to accept the ‘going broke’ scenario that Congress, the Heritage Foundation and others of that ilk, have been touting about Social Security – drinking the Kool-Aid, as some would say, not even knowing the origin of that phrase (cult leader Rev. Jim Jones, who urged for his followers in to drink poisoned Kool-Aid at his failed 'Jonestown' encampment in Guyana towards the end). 

 

          For more clarity, let’s understand this on a small level like a permanent life insurance policy: when one has accumulated a certain amount of cash value, and you take out a certain percentage, it will not impact the death benefit as there is enough cash value remaining to pay the term costs for the remainder of the policy life (and with no new premium payments and no repayment of the cash value deduction). It’s a balancing act but not only can it be done but is done regularly by insurance companies. Take out too much cash value [as Congress has been doing for over the last 50 years] and the policy terminates prematurely under these same conditions. As the result, Congress wants to hide the fact that without their thefts – oops, they call it ‘borrowing’ – that they have no intention of repaying, Social Security would be prosperous today, based on the concept of compound interest over almost 85 years with newer contributions against the backdrop of payouts to beneficiaries. It’s not Ponzi, but it’s still a scheme!

 

          A number of our institutions are not meeting the needs of the people they are designed to serve, and it should be clear to us now that we have the intellect, ability and concern [because they are supposed to serve us] to do a much, much better job. The people currently running those offices don’t have that need or that ability, because of the design of our economic system, which is capitalism. They make decisions just like kings, queens, earls and dukes did during feudalism, to use our resources to serve themselves. We say, let’s take those resources that we created, and serve ourselves! We ARE the 99%, we created the resources, and the lack of or control of those resources by the rich, is a problem that WE must solve, for ourselves and our posterity!