The bill as reported jeopardizes the traditional right of self-medication and choice of remedies….The bill could very well become a handmaiden of socialized medicine.
Known Communists and fellow travelers within Federal agencies are at work diligently with Federal funds in furtherance of the Moscow party line.
I considered it socialism. It is to my mind the most socialistic measure this Congress has ever had before it.
Imagine the vast army of clerks which will be necessary to keep these records.
The actual fact will be, in almost every case, that the whole tax will be borne either by the employe [sic] or by the consumer through higher prices. That is the history of all such taxes. This is because the tax is imposed in such a way that, if the employer is to stay in business, he must shift the tax to some one else.
Do not forget this: such an excessive tax on payrolls is beyond question a tax on employment. In prosperous times it slows down the advance of wages and holds back re-employment. In bad times it increases unemployment, and unemployment breaks wage scales.
There is every probability that the cash they pay in will be used for current deficits and new extravagances. We are going to have trouble enough to carry out an economy program without having the Treasury flush with money drawn from the workers…
This is the largest tax bill in history. And to call it ‘social security’ is a fraud on the workingman…. I am not exaggerating the folly of this legislation. The saving it forces on our workers is a cruel hoax.
[Social Security will ] impose a crushing burden on industry and labor [and] establish a bureaucracy in the field of insurance in competition with private business.
The lash of the dictator will be felt and 25 million free Americans will for the first time submit themselves to a finger print test.
