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

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