Faith in Social Security inherited

In today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Bill Glauber interviews University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor John Witte, grandson of Edward E. Witte. The elder Witte had been a UW economics professor, then head of the state legislative reference librarian, before going to work in the Roosevelt administration in 1934 as executive director of the Committee on Economic Security. There his grandson says he was the principal drafter of what was enacted as Social Security.

First, economic faith,

"I'd bet most people still think they have a Social Security account, like an annuity system. They don't know the money flows into a huge pot and from it everybody gets paid."

That is, it's an unfunded unvested defined benefit pension. On to political faith.

He tells his students, "Every political bone in my body says Social Security is going to be there when you retire."

Adding in some non-faith-based considerations,

he warns the students that another piece of the retirement puzzle - vested [private] pensions - is not likely to survive on a widespread basis.

"They have to save for themselves, and Social Security will be there as a backup," he says.

Backup sounds like a euphemism for means-testing.