Social Security Origins

[Lasher]

Chain email claims:

"Franklin Roosevelt introduced the Social Security (FICA) program. He promised:

1) That participation in the program would be completely voluntary;
2) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the program;
3) That the money the participants elected to put into the program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year;
4) That the money the participants paid in would be put into the independent "Trust Fund," rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement program, and no other Government program.;
5) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income."

This one has been extensively debunked:

Social Security Administration: Debunking Some Internet Myths
Social Security Administration: Debunking Some Internet Myths - Part 2
Snopes: Social Security Changes
FactCheck.org: FDR’s “Voluntary” Social Security
TruthOrFiction.com: Social Security Origins?

[freshwest]

1. Social Security the brainchild of none other than Revolutionary War rabble rouser Thomas Paine...

And I love him for it. Few people know the moral reasons for the establishment of the system that the civilized countries enjoy and we still have to fight for. It's the way to peace and justice.

Check it out:

http://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html

Show it to your Teabag neighbors and then show them some quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, in context. It'll freak 'em.

This is the full context of one of their favorite quotes about how
'the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, etc.' they love to carry on about:

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2009/11/jefferson-bloody-tree-of-liberty-quote.html

From the article, see what Thomas Jefferson meant:

'Thomas Jefferson was in Paris at the time. From that distance, he adopted a philosophical view of Shay’s Rebellion.

In his letter to Col. Smith, Jefferson did not justify the rebellion. In fact, he said it was “founded in ignorance.”

But then, Jefferson went on to say the part that people who are mad as hell about something love to quote:

“What country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

Remember too, when their very name of Tea Party is about the men who resisted a foreign corporation harming American business. A far cry from the US Chamber of Commerce that is taking foreign dollars to destroy our country.