Republicans want to scale back social insurance programs. They see dignity in retirement and relief from poverty as a burden on government, and an unnecessary extravagance for undeserving beneficiaries.
From 1936 GOP presidential candidate Alf Landon, who called Social Security a “cruel hoax” on American workers, to future President Ronald Reagan’s recorded warnings in the 1960s that Medicare will lead to socialism and the destruction of American democracy, to George W. Bush’s failed attempt to privatize Social Security, Republicans have longed to deny earned benefits, leaving the elderly and the poor stranded.
But frontal assaults are not the only way to mount an attack on social insurance.
Social Security Works - Washington 