Video: USC student interview with political icons James Carville & Reince Priebus

In 1933, Dr. Francis Townsend penned a Letter to the Editor for the Long-Beach Press-Telegram. His radical, simple idea--to give $200 a month (now, about $4,800) to seniors, on the condition that they spend it all before their next payment--spawned one of the largest citizen movements the nation had experienced up to that point. A congressional caucus was even formed in response to the movement. Soon, states took up similar proposals, such as the “Ham and Eggs” initiative in California, which would have provided each resident over 50 with $30 per week. Though the Townsend Plan and its state equivalents failed, the Social Security Act may not have been passed nor later amended to be made stronger if it were not for this one doctor’s letter and the movement it inspired.

How best to ensure the economic resilience of Americans is again atop Congress’s agenda and at the center of the presidential election. This is unsurprising, given public concern about the state of the economy. More than a third of Americans identify economic issues as the main problem facing the country. This sizable coalition has remained consistent for more than two years, which suggests that piecemeal progress in addressing economic instability has not alleviated the public’s worries.