Thankful for Social Security

You probably have never heard of a fellow named Ernest Ackerman, but he was the first person in the U.S. to receive Social Security benefits. That was in January 1937—and he received 17 cents! But that was a good return: he had been a member for just one day and had contributed only five cents. 

Creation of Social Security

The Social Security Administration has an online 40-page document titled “Historical Background And Development Of Social Security.” For those who want (and have the time to read!) detailed information, that is the place to go. Here I will just write briefly about the years from 1933 to 1940.

There had long been a dire need in this country for financial help for the elderly. One of the most popular plans before 1935 was the Townsend Plan as proposed by Francis Townsend (b. 1/13/1867).

In 1933, Townsend launched his career as an old-age activist, proposing that every retired person over 60 be paid $200 per month—with the stipulation that they had to spend the money within 30 days (to stimulate the economy).

Within two years, there were over 3,400 Townsend Plan Clubs in the U.S. Their popularity prompted FDR to propose Social Security and then spurred Congress to pass the Social Security Act (SSA), which President Roosevelt signed into law in August 1935.**

Taxes were collected for the first time 85 years ago this month, in January 1937, including Ackerman’s nickel. However, the first monthly retirement check was not issued until January 31, 1940. That check was sent to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, and was for $22.54.

Opposition to Social Security

As you might well guess, there was considerable opposition to the SSA of 1935 as there was to most of FDR’s New Deal proposals. From the very beginning, one of the main arguments against Social Security was that it was a form of socialism. 

But by 1936 economic conditions in the U.S. had improved considerably and Roosevelt was widely popular. So, in spite of the opposition to the New Deal by Republicans and criticism of Social Security as being socialist, Roosevelt was re-elected by a landslide.

In July 1965, under the leadership of President Johnson, Congress enacted Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people aged 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. 

Opposition to the federal government passing legislation for the benefit of the general public increased after 1981, with President Reagan declaring in his inaugural address “. . . government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” 

Conservative Republicans ever since have consistently used Reagan’s words and their opposition to socialism to oppose greater levels of healthcare, such as their unified opposition to “Obamacare” in 2010, and some even wanting to alter or dismantle Social Security.

Gratitude for Social Security

Millions and millions of USAmericans (including me), though, are deeply grateful for Social Security and Medicare. And for the benefit of a wider public, many (again, including me) are in full support of expanding Medicare and “Obamacare,” which has steadily gained in popularity.

A 2019 Gallup poll indicated that “Social Security is a mainstay of older Americans’ financial wherewithal, and . . . a system Americans greatly value.”

The same article reports that some 57% of retirees indicated that Social Security is a major source of income in their retirement, eclipsing by far the second and third sources—retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs, and work-sponsored pension plans.

Similarly, Medicare/Medicaid also has widespread public support, and a strong majority now believe that those benefits should be expanded.

And then according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in Oct. 2021, nearly 60% of all U.S. adults approved of “Obamacare,” the highest percentage of approval since its beginning. It was opposed, though, by 72% of the Republicans polled.

But yes, along with so many others I have great gratitude for Social Security (and Medicare) which has provided so much financial help through the years since June and I turned 65.

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** Here is the link to Heather Cox Richardson’s informative four-page “letter” posted on Aug. 14, 2021, the anniversary of Roosevelt’s signing the SSA into law. It is partly about Francis Townsend, but has more about Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor.

Tearing Down / Building Up

To quote Mortimer Snerd (whom a few of you may remember), “Who'd a thunk it?” Last Friday the bill to repeal and replace “Obamacare” was pulled from the House floor. Thus, the ACA is still the law of the land “for the foreseeable future,” according to Speaker Paul Ryan.

TEARING DOWN OBAMACARE

For seven years the Republicans have been opposed to the ACA. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal or amend ACA more than 50 times since it was passed in October 2009.

As Time reported last week, “Republicans took control of the House in 2011, and on January 19 of that year they voted on, and passed, a measure to repeal all of the Affordable Care Act. (It was never considered by the Senate).”

Before and since his election, Pres. Trump has publicly promised at least 68 times that he would lead in repealing and replacing Obamacare. Here is what he tweeted on Feb. 14: “Obamacare continues to fail. . . . Will repeal, replace & save healthcare for ALL Americans.”

(Those 68 statements can be found at this website.)

There is a big difference, however, between tearing something down and building something to take its place.

FAILING TO BUILD A REPLACEMENT

In thinking about the failure of the American Health Care Act, I was reminded of an anonymous poem that I first heard 60 or so years ago (in spite of a woman claiming on the Internet that her grandfather wrote it in 1967). 

The Republicans found out that it is much easier to repeal (tear down) the current healthcare system that to replace it by building a new healthcare program. Wrecking is much easier than building.

So, where does national healthcare go from here?

PROPOSAL: RENAME AND BUILD UP

The current impasse could be overcome and a new and approved healthcare system could be implemented in this way:

First, Democrats would agree to call an improved healthcare system by the name of the Republican bill that was never voted on: the American Health Care Act. It would no longer be called Obamacare—just as it should probably never have been called that in the first place.

Then, the Republicans would agree to work with the Democrats in improving (building up what is already in place) the parts of ACA which are not working well: making it more affordable for everyone, giving people more choice, continuing to expand the program to cover all Americans, and so on.

Senate Minority Leader Schumer has already indicated willingness to cooperate in the hard work of building a better system. He is reported as saying, “If they [the Republicans] would denounce repeal . . . then we’ll work with them on improving it and making it better.”

Bipartisan efforts to build a better healthcare system is, doubtlessly, what the vast majority of the American people want—although it would still be opposed by those on the far right.

The latter would, also doubtlessly, continue to oppose having the federal government directly involved in healthcare, having equal or greater demand for taxes to pay for the continued (or expanded) program, and of not having tax breaks for the wealthy.

Constantly opposing any plan to tear down the current system and thus deprive millions of people from healthcare coverage, citizens who are concerned about all the people in our nation must demand that Congress build up (repair) the current healthcare system so it is better for all.

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THE REST OF THE POEM

For those of you who may be interested, here is the rest of the poem cited above: 

A Second Bill of Rights

Last week I posted a blog article about President Roosevelt’s famous “four freedoms” speech, which was his State of the Union address delivered 75 years ago.

Three years later, on January 11, 1944, FDR gave his 11^th (!) State of the Union talk. He had just recently come back from an overseas trip during which he had conferred with British Prime Minister Churchill in Cairo and then had attended the “Big Three” summit with Stalin in Tehran.

In addition to being exhausted, he had also caught influenza from which he was still recovering. So the President chose to send his 1/11/44 “State of the Union” message to Congress in writing and to read the message to the American people from the comfort of the White House.

That talk was another of FDR’s “fireside chats” to the whole nation. It was a highly significant talk, for in it he set forth what he called a second Bill of Rights. (Hear part of it here.)

The Second World War would not be over for another 19 months, but FDR was looking past the end of the war, which he confidently thought the Allies would win.

In that momentous “chat,” he asserted that a “basic essential to peace—permanent peace—is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.”

The President clearly was reinforcing two of the freedoms he had emphasized in his State of the Union message three years before.

He went on to aver that “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. . . . People who are hungry, people who are out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

So President Roosevelt proposed “a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all.” He explained that those rights include . . .

** The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

** The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

** The right of farmers to raise and sell their products at a return which will give them and their families a decent living;

** The right of every business man, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

** The right of every family to a decent home;

** The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

** The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment;

** And finally, the right to a good education.

Immediately following this listing, the President went on to assert, “All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.”

There was some progress in the U.S. toward realizing these goals in the first 20 years following the end of the war.

But in the 1960s it began to be increasingly realized that some, especially African-Americans, were not being treated fairly and their economic rights were not being realized sufficiently.

The struggle goes on as even today, for example, many of our political leaders oppose increasing the minimum wage and have voted to repeal “Obamacare” without proposing any way to provide adequate medical care to many “fellow citizens.”

Mixed Feelings about Governor Bevin

In the summer of 1959 June and I moved from our beloved state of Missouri to Kentucky. We spent seven years there and came to love Kentucky as our second “home state.” In addition to being a full-time seminary student I was also a pastor during most of that time, and I still have good memories and great respect for many of the Kentuckians in our churches.

 Perhaps because of that past connection, I was especially interested in the gubernatorial election in Kentucky last month. That highly contested election had ramifications beyond Kentucky: it may have even been a harbinger for the presidential election next year.

 Businessman Matt Bevin was elected as the new Kentucky governor. I have mixed emotions, however, about Bevin (b. 1967), who will be inaugurated on this coming Tuesday, December 8.

 On the one hand, Bevin seems to be a dedicated Christian layman. He is also a dedicated family man: he and his wife have nine children, including four from Ethiopia whom they adopted.

 Their oldest child, Brittiney, was killed in a car accident in 2003 on Lexington Road near the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) about a month before her 18^th birthday. (I used to drive down that road several times a week.)

 Brittiney had wanted to be a missionary, so her parents provided an endowment in her memory to fund a facility at SBTS “for the advancement of the gospel amongst the nation and nations.” It opened in the fall of 2012. As one who went to seminary in order to become a missionary, the establishment of the Bevin Center for Missions Mobilization is something I have to evaluate highly.

 But there are aspects of Bevin’s words and actions that are troubling. Supported by the Tea Party, he ran in the 2014 primary election against Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom he considered too liberal. Bevin lost that election, but then the Tea Party successfully promoted his gubernatorial campaign.

 One of his main appeals during his campaign for governor was his pledge to cut the state’s Medicaid program and close the state-run Kynect health insurance exchange. After the election he tempered his rhetoric somewhat, but Bevin’s election was not good news for the poorest people of Kentucky who have been greatly helped by “Obamacare.”

 As one who agrees with the Tea Party, Bevin opposes all tax increases and wants to decrease spending for the needy in the state.

 That seems highly questionable for a man whose net worth is widely estimated as being between $13.4 million and $54.9 million, who lives in a house costing over $700,000, and who pays more in tuition for his children to attend a private Christian school than the yearly income of many of the families in the state of Kentucky.

 Bevin has also said that when he becomes governor on Dec. 8 he will call for barring Syrian refugees from settling in Kentucky.

 By contrast, Steve Beshear, Kentucky’s current governor, has said that Kentucky should do “the Christian thing” and welcome all refugees who have passed extensive background checks.

 It seems to me that Gov. Beshear is right, and I wonder how “good” Christians like Bevin, many other Republican governors, and some presidential candidates can be so harsh in their rejection of Syrian refugees, many of whom are terrified children.

 Moreover, does the election of a businessman who has never held public office to be the governor of Kentucky mean the same sort of thing might happen in the presidential election next year?

 Perhaps. But I certainly hope not, for the sake of our nation.

A Victory for the Christian Right

Last Tuesday’s mid-term elections, as everyone knows, resulted in the Republican Party taking decisive control of the U.S. Senate.

There is not just one reason for this shift in political power. Nevertheless, a major factor has been the relentless six-year campaign against President Obama by religious conservatives.

From the day of his inauguration in 2009 the President (and the Democratic Party) has been the target of unending criticism and unceasing attacks by the Christian Right, which overwhelmingly supports the Republican Party.

One of the most active organizations on the Christian Right is the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC), of which I have written previously; e.g., here and here.

In a Nov. 5 article on their blog, the FFC announced, “Evangelical Vote Played Decisive Role in GOP Wave in 2014 According to Post-Election Survey.”

Their second headline gloated, “Self-Identified Conservative Christians Comprised Record Share of the Electorate, Backed GOP Candidates by 8 to 1 Margin.”

The FFC was gloating because they had worked so hard for a Republican victory. Ralph Reed, Chairman of the FFC, reported that the Coalition “distributed over 20 million voter guides in over 117,000 churches nationwide” prior to the Nov. election.”

They also “made over 10 million ‘get out to vote’ phone calls, knocked on 400,000 doors, mailed over 6 million voter guides, and emailed or texted over 4.6 million additional voters.”

My good friend Charlie Broomfield recently completed a Master’s degree at UMKC, writing his dissertation on the Christian Right and its political power.

Over the last few months, I have said that I thought the Christian Right was losing power and that they weren’t going to have as much political clout this year as in the past few elections.

Charlie disagreed with me—and it turned out that he was right, about this election, at least.

One of the most disheartening results of last week’s election was Thom Tillis’s election as the new U.S. Senator from North Carolina.

According to data supplied by Sarah Posner, 40% of voters in that state identified as white evangelical or born again—and 78% of them voted for Tillis. Only 16% of them voted for incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan.

Mark Sandlin is a progressive Christian whose articles are posted on Patheos.com from time to time. His Nov. 5 article was titled, “A Minister From Thom Tillis’ State Tells Us What To Expect After The Election Results.”

Sandlin avers, “With the GOP taking over all of Congress, particularly with Tea Party lackeys like Tillis among the crowd, we will see legislative moves that aid the ever-growing separation of classes, which is defined by the continued shrinking of the middle class.”

He continues, “Corporations will continue to have more rights than people and those rights will trump the rights of individuals. Woman can expect to have more of their rights (particularly reproductive rights) challenged.”

But Tillis, partly, or maybe mainly, because of his outspoken anti-abortion stance was one of the three candidates for the Senate most strongly supported by the FFC.

The other senatorial candidates most ardently supported by the FFC were Joni Ernst in Iowa and Cory Gardner in Colorado, who both, like Tillis, are adamantly against abortion and same-sex marriage.

They, like Tillis and most of the other new Republican senators, also have said they are for repealing “Obamacare.”

Yes, last Tuesday was a victory for the Christian Right. But it was a sad loss for a sizable majority of the citizens of this country, many of whom, regrettably, didn’t even bother to vote.

Honoring Sister Simone

This year’s recipient of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award will be Sister Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun and social justice activist best known as the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.”

Sister Simone (b. 1945) is the executive director of NETWORK, a nonprofit Catholic social justice lobby based in Washington, D.C. Tomorrow (Sept. 21) she will receive the prestigious award on the campus of St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.

NETWORK, social justice lobby that she heads, was founded in 1972. In 2004, Sister Simone became its Executive Director. She was an excellent choice, for she is a remarkable woman with great credentials.

She joined the order called Sisters of Social Service in 1964, taking her final vows in 1973. Four years later she earned a law degree from the University of California, Davis.

In the 1980s as she led the Community Law Center in Oakland, Calif., which she founded in 1978, she also began practicing Zen.

It is a bit hard to get one’s head around the idea of a Catholic nun who practices both law and Zen!

Sister Simone and her organization were relentless supporters of healthcare reform in 2009-10 despite the bishops’ warning that the bill would provide government funding for abortion.

She writes of how thrilled she was to be in the gallery when the House voted to adopt the Affordable Care Act (ACA), colloquially called Obamacare.

“That last one,” she writes in her book A Nun on the Bus (2014), “is a label I think the president will wear proudly, though his opponents used it as an epithet” (p. 93).

In April 2012, though, NETWORK was indirectly censured by the Vatican.

The reprimand was of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella organization under which NETWORK operates. But NETWORK seemed to be the LCWR-affiliate that caused the most concern for the Vatican.

By that time they were widely known for their Nuns on the Bus tour that occurred in June and the beginning of July in 2010. Their purpose was to appeal for economic justice and to oppose the “Romney-Ryan budget” that gutted funding for safety-net programs.

Because of Sister Simone’s support of Obamacare and her leading the 2012 bus tour, she was given six minutes to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Sept. 2012. You can see her deliver that speech here.

Last year, Rep. Nancy Pelosi wrote this about Sister Simone for Politico:

If there’s a single phrase to describe Sister Simone, it is “compassionate conviction.” With bravery, with courage, with optimism, she is focused on the common good. She is a champion for the cause of peace and justice. She has the will and the drive to do right.

Rep. Pelosi’s essay is part of a series in which dozens of women reveal what women they most admire. You can find the complete article here.

Last month June and I heard Sister Simone speak in Kansas City, and we were highly impressed with her. She has a most winsome stage presence and exhibits a good balance of self-confidence and humility.

We are also impressed that last year she led a second bus tour, appealing for immigration reform, and this month she and other Sisters started on a third bus tour, this time standing up against the Koch brothers and “big money” political donations. (Read about that here.)

In spite of all her political activities, Sister Simone remains a faithful Christian. Repeatedly, she writes, “Come, Holy Spirit,” and she refers to those words as her mantra (p. 91).

It is a joy to join with many others in honoring Sister Simone for what she has done and continues to do.