Social Security: The never-ending (pseudo) crisis

Sidney Blumenthal provides some important historical perspective on the "crisis" of Social Security:  Recycled Rhetoric Salon 03/03/05.

But [Republican consultant Frank] Luntz's rhetorical twists and turns, adopted by Bush and the Republicans, are hardly innovative. They are as ancient as the earliest arguments made by Republicans against Social Security when it was first introduced. Social Security is in crisis, Social Security will not be there, only the Republicans can save the system by privatizing it -- all these themes were advanced in the 1936 Republican Party platform. This yellowing document reads like the most recent Republican declaration:

"Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it." The 1936 Republican platform claims that the federal government will not be able to meet its financial obligations to pay retirement benefits and two-thirds of the people will be deprived. It also insists that "the fund will contain nothing but the government's promise to pay" and is "unworkable."

The Republican candidate for president against Franklin D. Roosevelt that year, Alf Landon, governor of Kansas, was the first to run on "reforming" Social Security, which he dubbed a "hoax." Roosevelt's victory seemingly settled the question of Social Security and the basic programs of the New Deal. In every election afterward, the GOP split internally between conservatives, who rallied behind their standard-bearer, Sen. Robert Taft, and those who called themselves modern Republicans. When Dwight Eisenhower defeated the eternally disappointed Taft for the 1952 nomination, the conservatives crawled to a corner, embittered and despairing. Conservatives were convinced that overthrowing the New Deal must be accomplished through a long march through the Republican Party, also overthrowing modern Republicanism.