America on Fire

[TBF]

35. Social Insurance --

Initially though the theorists who wrote about it did conceive of a program which would help folks who "need" it. How do we define "need"? Do we "need" it because we have a million dollar home we want to pass down to our children (and we don't wish to prematurely sell it), or do we "need" it in that we have no resources and this is a safety net.

Here is what one theorist said --

One of the first American books on social insurance was by a Columbia University economics professor named Henry Seager. Seager explained the principle of old-age security based on social insurance in his 1910 book, "Social Insurance, A Program of Social Reform":

"As changing economic conditions are rendering the dependence of old people on their descendants for support increasingly precarious, so, on the other hand, new obstacles are arising to providing for old age through voluntary saving. . . The proper method of safeguarding old age is clearly through some plan of insurance. . . for every wage earner to attempt to save enough by himself to provide for his old age is needlessly costly. The intelligent course is for him to combine with other wage earners to accumulate a common fund out of which old-age annuities may be paid to those who live long enough to need it."

It is interesting to me that liberals are just as concerned about their private property rights as conservatives. Until this changes we really are not going to make meaningful progress in this country.

I'm not really directing this response at you sabrina 1, I know you are one of the more progressive posters on this board. Just sort of working this out in my head and thinking about how a program like this should work.

What I DO know is that the $$$ should not be "borrowed" out of it's fund for war-mongering, and there is no need for a "cap" to give yet another incentive to billionaires. That cap needs to be eliminated. After that looking at what the purpose of the program should be is interesting to me.