Understanding The Right's Never-Ending War to Destroy Social Security (w/ Alex Lawson)
Current Affairs26 Okt 2023

Understanding The Right's Never-Ending War to Destroy Social Security (w/ Alex Lawson)

Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works and the convening member of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. He has spent his career working to try to save Social Security from Republican (and sometimes Democratic) attempts to "reform" (i.e., cut) it. Today, Alex joins to discuss:

  • Why Social Security is a huge social democratic achievement and the fight it took to get it in the first place
  • Why the right has always hated Social Security (it shows government can work and successfully help people) and the history of their attempts to undermine it
  • The lies and propaganda that are used to convince people that Social Security is in a crisis and urgently needs reforms that will cut people's benefits
  • How the strong popularity of Social Security means politicians all pretend they support it even when they don't, and why we need to be vigilant against politicians who pretend they care about maintaining it and then try to sneak through measures to cut benefits
  • Why we need to go on the offensive, not just defending Social Security as it exists but demanding an expansion of benefits

Alex's testimony to the Senate budget committee from last year can be found here. Useful commentaries on Social Security by Matt Bruenig can be found here and here. Here is his explanation of the point Alex made about how raising the retirement age cuts benefits (the chart is very helpful in making the point clearer). The book Social Security Works For Everyone! is a useful primer on the issues.

The philosophical bent of Social Security is an ever-expanding system of economic security delivered to more and more and more people. When FDR signed it into law, he said 'With this law, I lay the cornerstone that future generations can build upon.' And that's what we have to recognize. — Alex Lawson

Episoder(600)

How Media Silences Anti-War Voices (w/ Amy Goodman)

How Media Silences Anti-War Voices (w/ Amy Goodman)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Amy Goodman is the longtime host of Democracy Now!, the independent news program she helped launch ...

12 Apr 36min

California’s Democratic Field Is Embarrassingly Weak (w/ Dr. Butch Ware)

California’s Democratic Field Is Embarrassingly Weak (w/ Dr. Butch Ware)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Dr. Butch Ware is a historian, public intellectual, and the Green Party candidate for Governor of C...

9 Apr 41min

Israel’s Most Genocidal Law Yet (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

Israel’s Most Genocidal Law Yet (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership  Jasper Nathaniel is an independent journalist who recently returned from documenting Israeli settl...

2 Apr 1h 1min

Iran Historian: War Makes The Government "MORE REPRESSIVE" (w/ Afshin Matin-Asgari)

Iran Historian: War Makes The Government "MORE REPRESSIVE" (w/ Afshin Matin-Asgari)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Afshin Matin-Asgari is an Iranian historian and professor of Middle East history at California Stat...

28 Mar 46min

Current Affairs Is Going to Cuba

Current Affairs Is Going to Cuba

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Donald Trump is trying to starve the island nation into submission, but an international coalition ...

22 Mar 15min

Israel Wants to Turn Lebanon Into Gaza (w/ Rania Khalek)

Israel Wants to Turn Lebanon Into Gaza (w/ Rania Khalek)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Rania Khalek is a journalist based in Beirut and the host of Dispatches on BreakThrough News. In th...

18 Mar 45min

What Really Happened at the Washington Post (w/ Becca Rothfeld)

What Really Happened at the Washington Post (w/ Becca Rothfeld)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Becca Rothfeld is a staff writer at The New Yorker, an editor at The Point, and the former nonficti...

17 Mar 50min

Joe Biden Set the Stage for Trump's War on Iran (w/ Annelle Sheline)

Joe Biden Set the Stage for Trump's War on Iran (w/ Annelle Sheline)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Annelle Sheline is a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Respons...

12 Mar 43min

Populært innen Humor

rss-spartsklubben
papaya
harm-og-hegseth
enkel-servering
storefri-med-mikkel-og-herman
tore-og-haralds-podkast
tusvik-tnne
topp-3-med-wold-og-fladseth
folk-flest-med-linn-og-nils
ma-pa-behandling-med-morten-ramm
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
misjonen-med-antonsen-og-golden
wolfgang-wee-uncut
jan-thomas-og-einar-blir-venner
hanna-de-heldige
rss-det-alle-snakker-om-med-siri-og-kim
mikkels-paskenotter
verdens-verste
rss-snorre-med-gaute
rss-dannet-uten-piano