Obama gets Social Security facts wrong

[Donnachaidh]

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 ---

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Larkspur]

2. At best Obama is a Reagan Democrat

That's why he gets his FDR facts wrong.

[Angry Dragon]

3. Obama is not bush

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

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

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Parroting the far-right lie that Social Security wasn't intended for retirees

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.

[laughingliberal]

5. He used that same line on TDS. No way he doesn't know it's false. nt

[struggle4progress]

6. Obama misspoke. *yawn*

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Misspoke *twice* nt

[struggle4progress]

12. Horrors. In less than an hour, he dealt with an ambassador, got an economic briefing,

then held a press conference.

[MannyGoldstein]

13. I guess he misspoke when he named Simpson and Bowles

to a "deficit" commission.

Yes?

[11 Bravo]

26. Nice! Total deflection of the OP, possibly leading to another of an endless series ...

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

[struggle4progress]

28. thank you

[TBF]

21. This from the guy who plays multi-dimensional chess - that can't be. nt

[Overseas]

8. K&R to refresh our recognition of common myths about Social Security.

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.

[Better Believe It]

9. President Obama is buying and selling someone else's talking points.

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

And not a book provided by Social Security opponents.

[Enthusiast]

23. Plus one! nt

[pinto]

10. Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) makes this point on the bigger picture of Social Security.

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 -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081202575_pf.html

No self-respecting liberal today would support Franklin Roosevelt's original Social Security Act. It excluded agricultural workers -- a huge part of the economy in 1935, and one in which Latinos have traditionally worked. It excluded domestic workers, which included countless African Americans and immigrants. It did not cover the self-employed, or state and local government employees, or railroad employees, or federal employees or employees of nonprofits. It didn't even cover the clergy. FDR's Social Security Act did not have benefits for dependents or survivors. It did not have a cost-of-living increase. If you became disabled and couldn't work, you got nothing from Social Security.

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

[MannyGoldstein]

14. But it was originally intended for retirees

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

Why are so many trying to deny it?

[pinto]

15. I think the confusion here is that at its start SS was more limited than it is today.

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:

[TBF]

22. Interestingly, Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, expanded

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

[Hannah Bell]

16. the original social security act provided:

- 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)

[pinto]

19. Thanks for the timeline updates.

:thumbsup:

[Poboy]

11. Its pretty clear now that he will say and do anything politically

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.

[dgibby]

18. I respectfully disagree.

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

[NorthCarolina]

17. It's not misinformation going IN, just coming OUT. nt

[Bluebear]

27. !!!

[hulka38]

20. If he had said this a year ago

I would have thought it an honest mistake.

[Enthusiast]

24. Now we know better. nt

[Xicano]

25. Check these out....

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

[Starry Messenger]

34. Thank you for posting those, and K&R to the OP.

[Faryn Balyncd]

29. K&R

:kick:

[Faryn Balyncd]

30. K&R

:kick:

[Autumn]

31. K/R

:kick:

[boppers]

32. "for every American worker"?

"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.

[John Q. Citizen]

33. Well Christmas is coming. We should organize to buy a copy and send it to him

From the folks at DU to President Obama