Lately there has been some seemingly uninformed ranting about Social Security being an entitlement. Fox News, however, did not tell people the history of Social Security, which was proposed by Frances Perkins of Maine.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of the Department of Labor, she created Social Security because people needed some form of savings for the years when they could not work. It was not called retirement. Perkins, a true statesperson (in short supply these days) worked for the people.

She once said, “I came to Washington to work for God, FDR and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen.” While the wording is indicative of the times, the sentiment remains.

Those at the top, who made it there on the backs of the working folks, seem to forget that. How is that? CEOs depart with outrageous sums of money that they did not make on their own while the rest eke out their later years on not much, their salaries not enough for savings.

Something that we spend our life paying into — Social Security — is not an entitlement. Something that is handed to you without working for it is an entitlement, for example the free, lifetime pensions and insurance for our overpaid ineffectual Congress and other governmental officials. Oddly, many of those folks rail against “big” government, yet spend their lifetimes working for the government and accepting their lifetime of free and entitled living. How is that?

Now in politics there are so many opportunities for good. The Affordable Care Act, when it was created by a Republican and is working well in Massachusetts, is vilified now. How is that? We are told that Americans don’t want it, yet millions tried to sign up and the website that doesn’t work is certainly suspect to anyone who thinks. How is that?

Lisa Kimball, East Madison