Max Baucus: “I celebrate and honor the venerable life, not of a person, but of the most important and successful domestic program in…”

“I celebrate and honor the venerable life, not of a person, but of the most important and successful domestic program in our Nation's history. On August 14, Social Security will turn 75. In a special Message to Congress in June 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated the promise of Social Security, saying: If, as our Constitution tells us, our Federal Government was established among other things, to promote the general welfare,' it is our plain duty to provide for that security upon which welfare depends. President Roosevelt outlined his intention to ``undertake the great task of furthering the security of the citizen and his family through social insurance.'' Executive Order 6757 created the committee on Economic Security, putting his plan into action. The committee included 5 Cabinet-level officials and 21 government experts from several Federal agencies. At the committee's 25th birthday celebration, Francis Perkins, who was Secretary of Labor and member of the Committee on Economic Security, recounted the work of that committee. And she remembered an embarrassing oversight in the rush to create it--the committee had not been funded. But that was not going to stop its members. Relying on a small personal loan from one committee member, the committee hired unemployed stenographers and typists and recruited professionals and experts to help out. They sent a telegram that stated: We have no money.…”