FDR had Social Security from the start: “A law that will lessen the force of future depressions.”
“This law represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.”
Full Quote from: www.ssa.gov/history/fdrstmts.html#signing
