John,

2024 hopeful Mike Pence (who you may recall as Donald Trump’s Vice President) has been making the rounds lately, and he’s been repeating a phrase that caught our ears:¹

“I think we can replace the New Deal with a better deal.”

Pence goes on to say that he would keep promised benefits for Americans who retire in the next 20 years―which suggests that he either wants to discriminate against older Americans or is an admission that the ‘better’ deal is actually worse.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President who signed Social Security into law, warned us about politicians like Mike Pence in a speech the year after he signed The Social Security Act of 1935:²  

Let me warn you and let me warn the nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security [...]. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them—we will do more of them, we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

This Presidents’ Day, it’s worth remembering that our Social Security system’s strength comes from its universal, bipartisan support among the American people―and among Presidents of both parties. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower wrote of politicians like Pence:³

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Even Richard Nixon, a deeply corrupt man and President, took care to increase Social Security benefits and establish the automatic cost-of-living increase that keeps Social Security benefits strong.⁴ Can you imagine if the same Congress that weaponizes the debt ceiling also needed to take action to allow Social Security to keep pace with rising prices?

Mike Pence’s comments are particularly noteworthy today, as Republicans pretend that they never intended to cut Social Security and Medicare. FDR had another piece of advice for the American people as they evaluate claims by politicians:⁵

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: The Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.

Politicians like Mike Pence, Rick Scott, Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis are not trustworthy stewards of our earned benefits. They belong to a party that would happily see the senior poverty rate return to 50% if it would enrich their Wall Street paymasters.

From FDR to Joe Biden, presidents have defended our Social Security system or, like aspiring privatizer George W. Bush, paid the price with a midterm election wipeout.

Social Security Works is fighting to defend the work that generations of Americans have done to build our Social Security system. We’re going to make sure that trend continues. Chip in today!

If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your secure donation will go through immediately:

Thanks, and Happy Presidents’ Day

Michael, Alex, Nancy & the Social Security Works Team

¹ https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1626308636451430403
² https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-democratic-state-convention-syracuse-ny
³ https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-edgar-newton-eisenhower/
⁴ https://www.ssa.gov/history/nixstmts.html
⁵ https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-democratic-state-convention-syracuse-ny