Motley Moose – Archive

On August 14, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat, signed the Social Security Act into law. Since that time, Social Security has been protected by Democratic presidents and Democratic Congresses.

FDR signing Social Security into law

The Social Security Act of 1935:

Before the 1930s, support for the elderly was a matter of local, state and family rather than a Federal concern (except for veterans’ pensions). However, the widespread suffering caused by the Great Depression brought support for numerous proposals for a national old-age insurance system. On January 17, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a message to Congress asking for “social security” legislation.

The act created a uniquely American solution to the problem of old-age pensions. Unlike many European nations, U.S. social security “insurance” was supported from “contributions” in the form of taxes on individuals’ wages and employers’ payrolls rather than directly from Government funds. The act also provided funds to assist children, the blind, and the unemployed; to institute vocational training programs; and provide family health programs.

Prior to Social Security, the elderly routinely faced the prospect of poverty upon retirement. For the most part, that fear has now dissipated.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democratic president, created a long-lasting program to keep our most vulnerable citizens out of poverty.

Disclaimer: This is purely hypothetical. A true Tea Party “Patriot” would never apologize; they’d simply reload. They’d also have more typographical and grammatical errors if they did write anything. Still…

February 12, 2013

Dear Joanie,

Since we haven’t talked in so long, I was shocked to see you sitting in the very back of the church at Dad’s funeral last week. I wanted to see you, to hold you, to tell you so much, but by the time I got through the crowd, you were gone.  

After that last argument when you walked out after we thanked Fox News in our Thanksgiving prayer, I wasn’t sure I would ever see you and Jamal and the kids again. I know you probably still hate me and you probably don’t ever want to talk to me again, but please at least read this letter before you decide.

Now, with everything that’s happened, I can see why you did what you did. I am so sorry, more sorry than you will ever know, that I got involved with those Tea Party people. They seemed so patriotic. It was like they “got it”. Less taxes? Who wouldn’t want that? Get the government out of our lives? Well, at first I was kind of uneasy about that, with Dad working in the defense industry, but it turns out a bunch of them were in the same sort of situation or on Social Security or disability, and it didn’t seem like it was a problem for them.  

We were all just so worried that the country was going to hell in a handbasket, with all those people out of work and the government just spending and spending and spending. It was like people like us – good upstanding people who worked hard and paid our taxes just kept losing ground to people who were… well, you know.

The people over on Fox were the only ones who made sense out of it. Your Dad was the one who first started watching them he was home from work when he hurt his back. After I started watching it, I just got hooked. Glenn Beck was his favorite. He was the only person smart enough to figure out how all this politics and money and religion stuff was connected, and brave enough to say it. It’s too bad somebody silenced him. Hannity and O’Reilly and the others were okay, though, and after a while, we left the TV on Fox all the time.  

When you screamed at us that “you love Fox more than you love me and the kids!”, I am ashamed to say that you might have been right. I DO love you and Jamal and the kids (and Dad loved you guys too), but you were back east and we hardly ever saw you. I know it sounds stupid now, but Fox was our family.