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Forces are gathering in Washington to make sweeping changes in Social Security, with the White House leading the charge. Using his “mandate victory” of 2%, President Bush is making plans to privatize Social Security to the determent of America’s workers. This is building up to be one of the most important battles the working class has faced in years. It will take a concentrated effort to turn back the billions that corporations are throwing into the ring to break down the rights of workers.

President Bush’s Social Security scheme will costs $2 trillion and would entail massive cuts in promised benefits. While workers see cuts, bankers and brokers will live fat on the windfall they will receive at the expense of workers. The Washington Post reports that "a retiree in 2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefit now promised."

Education and information is the key to wading through the misinformation that the White House is using to sale this tainted bill of good. We need to contact our elected representatives and tell them to stop the White House from dismantling Social Security!

History of Social Security
For over 60 years Social Security has been the building block for taking care of America’s workers. It provided workers with a basis for saving for retirement, while protecting workers with a safety net in the event they became disabled and were no longer able to provide for their families.

Prior to the current system, families were left to provide care for the aging loved ones. President Franklin Roosevelt saw the growing need for a plan to care for America’s aging and developed a commission to study the issue. On August 14, 1935 the Social Security Act was signed into law, putting a plan in place to cover America’s aging workers.

Over the next 15 years amendments were passed to strengthen program for the future. On August 1, 1956, the Social Security Act was amended to provide benefits to disabled workers aged 50-65 and disabled adult children. Over the next 2 years, Congress broadened the scope of the program, permitting disabled workers under age 50 and their dependents to qualify for benefits, and eventually disabled workers at any age could qualify.

The decade of the 1960s brought additional changes to the Social Security program. Among the most significant was a provision in the Amendments of 1961 lowering the age at which men are first eligible for retirement benefits to 62 (women previously were given this option in 1956).

The most significant change involved the passage of Medicare. Under Medicare, health coverage was extended to Social Security beneficiaries aged 65 or older (and eventually to those receiving disability benefits as well). Nearly 20 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare in the first 3 years of the program. SSA would continue to have responsibility for all aspects of the Medicare program until a 1977 reorganization created the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). HCFA assumed administrative responsibility for Medicare at that time.