Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of
American Liberalism. By Marc J. Hetherington. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2004. 208p. $35.00.
Fifteen years after the signing of the Social Security Act, this
already broad government program was expanded. With the amendments of
1950, an additional 10 million additional people were covered, including
some of the poorest—domestic and agricultural workers. By using the
payroll tax to support Social Security payments, citizens saw the program
as one to which they contributed and from which they should receive. Even
in very different times 55 years later, Americans continued to support
this approach to public pensions. Despite comparatively low levels of
trust in government and decades of antitax and antigovernment movement
successes, President George W. Bush's efforts to privatize Social
Security fell flat.