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"Social
Security: History and Politics from the New Deal to the Privatization
Debate"
by Daniel Béland
University Press of Kansas, 2005
ISBN: 0-7006-1404-4
This new book by Canadian sociology
professor Daniel Béland is one of the few attempts
to produce a comprehensive policy history of the U.S. Social
Security system, in historical perspective, that ranges from
the creation of the program to the present day. Béland's
scholarship is reliable and his writing very readable. George
Washington University history Professor, Edward Berkowitz,
describes Béland's book as "theoretically informed,
historically accurate, and a valuable guide to Social Security's
development." |
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"Robert
Ball and the Politics of Social Security"
by Edward
D. Berkowitz
University of Wisconsin Press,
2003
ISBN: 0-299-18950-3
First paperback edition, August 2005
ISBN 0-299-18954-6
This newest book by prominent Social
Security historian Edward D. Berkowitz traces the development
of the Social Security program from about 1950 through the
end of the 20th century, by tracing the career of one of the
most prominent Social Security experts of that period, Robert
M. Ball. Ball served as a long-time government official during
much of this period--serving as Commissioner of Social Security
to three Presidents. Berkowitz has interwoven the stories
of Ball's career and Social Security's policy development
in an engaging and seemless narrative that makes this book
a very useful source for those interested in the history of
Social Security. |
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"Keeping
The Compound Republic: Essays on American Federalism"
by Martha Derthick
Brookings Institution
Press, 2001
ISBN:
0-8157-0202-7
This collection of political science
essays, on the general theme of American Federalism, contains
one essay on the Social Security Act. In a new essay entitled
"Roosevelt As Madison: Social Security and American Federalism,"
Professor Derthick summarizes the evidence for the view that
FDR, and the Social Security Act he designed, are more in the
tradition of the Madisonian philosophy of federalism rather
than in the centralizing philosophy of Hamilton. It is a useful
summary essay placing the Social Security Act in the larger
context of American political thought. |
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"Putting
Trust in the U.S. Budget: Federal Trust Funds and the Politics
of Commitment"
by Eric
M. Patashnik
Cambridge University
Press, 2000
ISBN:
0-521-77748-8
While primarily a political science
treatise, this book contains two reliable and highly-readable
chapters on the historical development of the Social Security
and Medicare Trust Funds. There are also many other observations
of historical interest on the general subject of federal budgeting
and the role of trust funds in federal programs. |
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www.socialsecurity.gov