Frank L. Peckham Quotes
Congress lacks Constitutional authority to offer pensions.
The Supreme Court which had found many of the New Deal laws unconstitutional, saw no Constitutional Problem with Social Security. However, the most popular legislation in American history had many right wing and in this case Fascist opponents. The Sentinels of the Republic was a group of wealthy right wing extremists who opposed FDR and all his programs of which Social Security was the most important. See {620798}.
Frank L. Peckham, ?, Attorney and Vice President, Sentinels of the Republic, Testimony against the then proposed Social Security Law, Senate Finance Committee, 1935
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In the 1930s, this right wing extremist organization labeled all the legislation of the Roosevelt New Deal as Jewish and Communistic although FDR was Protestant as was most of his cabinet. In the 1960s Southern extremists would all the Civil Rights movement by the same name.
18 years later, his son—George W. Bush—made the “nutty idea” one of the main planks in his Presidential legislative program. After the younger Bush traveled the country selling his reform ideas, the public came down on the side of his father and rejected the President’s “nutty idea.”
Clinton wanted to strengthen Federal control over how private pensions like 401k plans were managed and increase the penalties for fraud and abuse. The legislation failed. About 8 years later, the nation was in a private pension crisis with fraud, underfunding, and mismanagement destroying much of the value of American’s pensions and transferred more debt onto the Federal Government. Clinton critics argue that the proposed legislation was too weak to have prevented the serious problems that ensued, while supporters claim that he had to propose very little because of the opposition to doing anything. The quote is important because it shows early government knowledge of a potential problem which did not good as the system failed to build in any protection for the future
Commenting on the surplus in the fund:
The lead paragraph of the story by staff writer Leon Anderson reported that “Senator Goldwater said here today he favors turning Social Security into a voluntary program.” Ever since the New Deal initiated Social Security, with major Republican opposition, Republicans had been split on whether to support it or try and end it by privatizing the program that is the most liked program of the American population. George W. Bush, tried to make the privatization of Social Security the centerpiece of his legislative program, but the people rose up in protest and it was defeated easily.
Privatizing Social Security was the main piece of proposed legislation of George W. Bush’s second term. It was a conservative mantra for several years. It was finally defeated by a grass roots campaign of what Bush and his supporters referred to as scare tactics—projecting what might happen if the plan were implemented and the stock market went down substantially. With the Meltdown of 2008, the market crashed and this is what Galbraith is referring to. It would have been much worse than any of the privatization opponents had suggestion that even the staunchest economic conservatives would no longer advocate for privatizing Social Security. It was never even suggested in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives of 2012-2013.
The minimum wage has never come close to meeting this ideal criterion in any country of the world. At the same time, health insurance costs in the U. S. and some other countries has been increasing at a much greater rate than wages, making this ideal situation even more unattainable.
