Brit Hume is Right (FDR was for personal accounts)

Re: "Roosevelt vs. Bush", (John Nichols, The Nation, 3/5/05)
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2242

[Update from March 7: Based on a comment from a reader of this blog which you can read in the comments below, I have to say that I may have misread FDRs speech the same way Brit Hume did. If that's true, I would like to scold FDR for being less than clear in his words....and to scold him more for instituting Social Security. I'd also say that it is very easy to read FDR's speech the way I did, and that calls for Brit Hume to resign are simply silly.]

In January 1935, before the 74th Congress of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt put forth an outline for the Social Security system.

Despite protestations from FDR's grandson, Roosevelt's own words seem to support Brit Hume's assertion that Roosevelt wanted and expected eventual privatization.

Here is the entire quote (from the Congressional Record) for the third principle: "Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the federal government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

Not only did FDR expect voluntary personal accounts as part of Social Security, it appears he expected eventually them to replace a government-funded program.

James Roosevelt, Jr. should brush up on his family history and Mr. Nichols owes Brit Hume an apology.

Letters to the Editor, Social Security Reform

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This entry was posted by Rossputin on 03/05/05 at 11:34:42 pm . Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.

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Comments (2)

Comment from: niftydrifty
03/07/05 @ 12:03:37 pm

not quite

http://mediamatters.org/items/200502040010
Comment from: Thane Doss
05/08/05 @ 05:45:03 am

Compare the two statements below.

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Brit Hume on February 3:

In a written statement to Congress in 1935, Roosevelt said that any Social Security plans should include, quote, “Voluntary contributory annuities, by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age,” adding that government funding, quote, “ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.

Here’s the FDR statement

In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, non-contributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps thirty years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans.
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What you see is simply a species of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation, implying that statement A refers to statement C when it actually refers to statement B. To be more specific, the "old-age pension plan" referred to in principle 3 of Roosevelt's talk is the "old-age pensions" that constitute principle 1 of the plan. Principle 2, "compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations," is what we've come to know as Social Security, and is also clearly the "self-supporting annuity plans" which will supplant the "old-age pensions" of Principle 1. Roosevelt labeled everything quite clearly, but Hume intentionally confused the labelling.