Independence Day, Thomas Paine and Social Security
(By – Nancy Altman, via The Huffington Post)
Thomas Paine’s visionary writings embody the spirit of our nation. Perhaps President Franklin Roosevelt was thinking about Thomas Paine and his timeless words when he described Social Security as “a return to values lost in the course of our economic development and expansion.” It indeed marked a return to values. Another of Paine’s essays, Agrarian Justice, calls for universal old age pensions as well as pensions for people with disabilities — ideas enacted a century and a half later in the form of our Social Security system. Read more…