Social Security is the most popular general welfare program, ever and by far, and it is a Democratic program.
It was started by a Democratic President and Congress in the 1930s, expanded by a Democratic President and Congress in the 1960s, and cut back by a Republican President and Senate, with the shameful acquiescence of a Democratic House, in the 1980s.
Social Security remains a political issue, as Republicans, doing the bidding of Wall Street greedsters and heeding their anti-government extremist base, want to raise the retirement age again and reduce benefits now, and ultimately privatize the whole thing.
Pressure from progressives in and out of Congress evidently encouraged President Obama to stop advocating SS benefit cuts in his new budget.
That was on Thursday. Tuesday night I had the opportunity for brief chats with a Congressman and a promising Congressional candidate.
I talked about Social Security.
Details, below.
The occasion was the monthly meeting of the Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club at McGeary's in Albany, NY. The featured speaker was Sean Eldridge, the Democratic challenger to Chris Gibson in NY-19, a sprawling district just south of Albany.
Also speaking was Congressman Paul Tonko, NY-20, a reliable progressive.
Social Security did not come up in Tonko's or Eldridge's remarks, nor in the Q&A for Eldridge. So here's roughly what I said to each of them afterwards:
Social Security is incredibly popular, and is an issue that should have Democrats loudly protecting and working to expand it and telling the truth that Republicans want to cut and eventually kill it, as they have forever.
Many pension-less sorta-middle-class baby boomers like me have seen their IRAs and 401Ks basically stagnate over the last 20 years, so Social Security will be essential to keeping us sorta-middle-class in retirement.
Pushing for an increase in Social Security benefits is a political winner, and even if it won't happen, it will help Democrats win elections and move the Overton Window away from the Village consensus for "entitlement reform."
Social Security is a bedrock income support for retired people, the disabled, and widows and orphans. Any extra money they receive from SS will be spent that month somewhere in the consumer economy. And that's good for business.
Eldridge and Tonko listened attentively and were agreeable, as I expected. No commitments or anything, but that's OK.
The important thing, IMHO, is that they heard a concise, articulate message about how important SS is to lots of people, and why, especially for Eldridge, a strong progressive stance on SS is electoral gold.
Finally, I must offer a major hat tip to Duncan Black, aka Atrios, whose USA Today columns about increasing Social Security benefits have really moved the metaphoric window.
His take on Thursday's window-moving recognizes that there will always be more work to do to protect SS from Wall Street vultures and their political/media accomplices:
We all have a role to play in this little dance, and my role, when horrible things are proposed, is to scream and shout about how horrible they are to a) minutely decrease probability of it happening and b) helping to make sure if there is some "grand bargain" involved it isn't complete shit.
snip
Why would (many of Obama's economic advisers) support (the chained-CPI benefit cut) on the merits? Either they're just totally bad people, angling for Very Serious People seats in the Village, or they're wedded to the notion that somehow it makes sense for Dems to cut Social Security in a slightly less horrible way than Republicans instead of, you know, making the case that an extremely popular program just doesn't need to be cut and maximizing the political backlash against the bad guys who would try. In any case, there were genuine supporters of a horrible idea, people who would have supported doing it without a bargain.
Bravo, Atrios.
And thanks.