In
the current debate over Social Security reform, the name of Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican candidate for president, rarely comes up. But it should. Landon made what he called “the bungling and waste” of Social Security the key to his presidential campaign, and his opposition to Social Security, along with the arguments President Franklin Roosevelt voiced in defending Social Security against Landon, offers a history lesson that deserves our attention.
Landon’s attack on Social Security was stated most sharply in a September 26, 1936, speech, “I Will Not Promise the Moon,” that he gave in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Based on a report done for the Twentieth Century Fund, Landon’s speech attacked Social Security, which was due to begin collecting contributions on January 1, 1937, as a philosophical and economic disaster. As Landon put it, “This law is unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted, and wastefully financed.”
Landon argued that Social Security was “paternal go...
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