Does Ron Johnson understand Wisconsin’s important role in developing Social Security policy?

Social Security and Medicare policy have become important issues in the Wisconsin Senate campaign, due to controversial comments made by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Oshkosh).

Johnson has said that he favors changing those programs from mandatory programs, not subject to annual review, to discretionary programs needing review annually in the budget process. Critics suggest that this sets up these programs for benefit cuts.

What is rather remarkable about this debate is that it is happening in the state where the authors of the Social Security and Medicare programs came from.

Ed Witte was a professor in the economics department who ended up leading the Executive committee for the Committee on Economic Security, appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934. That committee developed all the technical aspects of the Social Security program before President Roosevelt sent it to Congress, where the legislation passed in 1935.

Other members who played a crucial role were Arthur Altmeyer and Wilbur Cohen, both alumni from the University of Wisconsin. Altmeyer, who drafted the executive order creating the Committee on Economic Security, became a member of the Social Security Board, and later  Commissioner of Social Security. Cohen, his deputy, later became a cabinet member in the Johnson administration. 

The Social Security program emerged from discussions in the economics department at the University of Wisconsin, which also developed programs such as unemployment insurance, workers compensation, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other social programs. Prototypes for national legislation on these topics first passed in the state of Wisconsin.

This author is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin’s economics program and I wrote my dissertation in the 1980s on the topic of Social Security, under the mentorship of Robert Lampman, whose major professor was Ed Witte. 

The great scholars who developed Social Security designed a program that has withstood scrutiny for nearly 100 years, and that provides crucial economic security to retired persons, the disabled, survivors and those in medical need. These programs lift millions of people out of poverty every year.

Each of these programs is built on a sacred promise that if workers pay into them  during their working years through a payroll tax, the benefits will be there when they need them, at retirement or otherwise. 

While Social Security faces challenges largely because of the retirement of the large baby boom population (born between roughly 1945 and 1964), the problems are surmountable. A series of relatively minor reforms to the benefit and tax structure can resolve the financing issues for decades.

It is not a good idea to move Social Security and Medicare from its mandatory status to discretionary programs as Johnson advocates. This would subject the program to haphazard cuts and revisions, causing stress and uncertainty for those depending on the programs. Johnson himself has proposed benefit cuts, which may be the objective.

In the proud tradition of the great minds from our own University of Wisconsin, the Badger State should not be leading the charge to dismantle key features of the bedrock programs of Social Security and Medicare that over 65 million people depend on.