Pensions Quotes
The WWI veterans lobby was formed and they pressured Congress into authorizing a bonus of between $1 and $1.25 for each day of wartime service. However, the catch was that they would not be paid until 1945 unless they did, Hence the name for the bonus. The Bonus March on Washington would eventually march on Washington to get their pay while they were still alive. Finally, the bonuses were paid immediately after Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the Presidency even though he personally opposed paying it early. Congress passed the law over his veto.
This statement was quoted over and over by his Presidential opponent, Lyndon Johnson in the campaign of 1964. Although, a wealthy person could on the average do a little better with a private investment of equivalent money and a disability insurance, those citizens of less wealth could not do so as easily. And few could obtain the disability and survivor benefits that comes along with Social Security. Goldwater wanted to make Social Security Voluntary, and most Americans thought the Goldwater prescription for Social Security would kill the program and did not support him. Conservatives have argued for this idea ever since, including Geirge W. Bush who made it a centerpiece of his administration’s program. It was rejected by the voters, and most of those were proven right when with the 2008 stocks had lost 50% of their value—the people who had retired and depended on their return from investments were mostly in terrible trouble. And of course, even in good times, some people who invest in the stock and bond markets do well and some do poorly. What would society do about those who lost most of their retirement. Let them starve because they invested badly?
There was no provision then for wounded and elderly soldiers. Madison’s suggestion was the beginning of the idea of The Veterans’ Administration which it would evolve into many years later.
In the midst of the Great Depression, Townsend had organized millions of Americans into “Townsend Clubs” to save money for their old age retirement. Townsend had proposed that the Government should run such a program where workers paid in every week and then all who were retired or disabled received $30 a week for like. There was no national pension plan at the time. When Townsend together with two right wing religious extremists formed the Union Party, the one vulnerability that the Roosevelt Administration felt it had was the lack of an old-age pension plan. Within a few days, Roosevelt proposed a new plan of the New Deal to Congress. It was called Social Security. It passed in record time.
This was before the Republican Party moved so far to the right. Eisenhower not only supported Social Security where each generation was paid for by the next generation, but he was adamant that the benefits were too low and should be increased. See {623075} for the extent that the Republican party deviated from its roots and traditions,
At the time, there was no pension for ex-presidents nor was any staff provided to them after they left office. Many people argued that there was no reason that an ex-President should not be a small businessman who operated a grocery store. However, there was then, as there is now some class consciousness and elitism in perception of occupations.
Devolution is the decentralization of government. Wales and Scotland were originally countries different from England. They came under the control of a single king but recently have obtained more autonomy—not unlike states in the United States. This reform was opposed by some politicians.
Many American corporations were walking away from their pension obligations and workers who had counted on a retirement got none of very little of what they had been promised. In some cases, the taxpayer would pay for some of the benefits. After several years of people getting disenfranchised by disreputable companies, the President and some members of Congress introduced new legislation to force some companies to better fund their pension plans.
Greece's politicians had mismanaged the economy and then lied to the other nations of the Eurozone to obtain loans, and was in the midst of an economic crisis.
What makes this quotation even more meaningful was the fact that Truman had very little money, He didn’t own his own home, and his only income was a $ 13,507.72 a year Army pension. There was no presidential pension then, so forgoing the offer that has been customary for retired high office holders, was truly a great sacrifice.
At the end of the 19th century, there were no private pensions for industrial workers nor was their A Social Security system of any other provision for retirement as workers age. Nor was their any Medicare or welfare system then established. Gompers’ description was then accurate.
The minimum wage has never come close to meeting this ideal criterion in any country of the world. At the same time, health insurance costs in the U. S. and some other countries has been increasing at a much greater rate than wages, making this ideal situation even more unattainable.
