George Sokolosky was a conservative new paper columnist and radio broadcaster

Transcript of minutes 6:22 to 9:35 of George Sokolsky's statements from America's Town Meeting of the Air, "Should We Plan for Social Security?" of December 19, 1935.

"Human liberty, my friends, is a rare privilege. Not likely gained, nor is it to be sacrificed for bread alone, fore without it, the guaranteed, the secured bread becomes the wages of a driven slave. There are no poor, no unemployed, no indigent, but I also want liberty. I want the human right which my ancestors never enjoyed, but which, to me, are more precious than life. Fore without them, life is a concha of crushing death. It is upon this basis that I shall now devote myself to the specific plan for social security, the federal government's Social Security Act passed by Congress and signed by the president and now is the law of the land. When we talk of that we have something very specific before us. Pretty close to five billion dollars annually within the next 15 years to be met by taxes which will produce increased prices, reduced profits and possibly even reduce the employment of labor. We need not be abstract or idealistic about this plan. It is here with us and we have to face it. Curiously enough, one of the first obstacles we encounter in this plan arises from our form of government. Clearly the rights to provide for unemployment insurance rests with the state but the federal government has the right to tax us too. The authors of this bill face their dilemma which in time, we must all encounter. They wanted to do something which they are not allowed to do. They got around their difficulty by a very simple device. They would tax all the payrolls of the United States and then they would remit ninety percent of the tax if the burdened citizens could free their state, could force their state legislature to pass such an act as the federal government wanted pass, passed. Here is a new principle of policy, a new departure from liberty. The federal government cannot coerce the state to pass a law, but it can offer the citizens of each state a bait, a monetary bait to have the law passed. Ninety percent of the federal tax is to be remitted if the state passes a law to conform to federal standards. The remaining ten percent remains with the federal government, but the federal government does not engage in the unemployment insurance business except to make grants and aids for administrative purposes for the state. The actual administration of the business is admittedly the function of the state therefore the remaining ten percent has no function. It is either a clear profit for the federal government, a hidden form of taxation, or it is a service charge for coercion."

How does George Sokolsky criticize the Social Security Act?
How did George Sokolsky describe the role of the states and federal government in administering this program?
If you were listening to this speech as an audience member how would you have responded?