Posted on 08/28/2011 3:46:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
OTTUMWA, Iowa - Riding high in the polls, Gov. Rick Perry rode into Iowa on Saturday with tough talk on President Obama, the economy and foreign policy and a declaration that Social Security is not only a Ponzi scheme but a "monstrous lie" for younger people.
"If you're for the status quo in America, I'm not your guy," Perry told an overflow crowd eager to see the presidential candidate at The Vine Coffeehouse, where people repeatedly sang God Bless America - once to try to encourage Perry to come in from shaking hands with people outside.
Asked by a woman in the crowd about Social Security being viewed as an entitlement program, Perry reiterated the suggestion in his anti-Washington book, Fed Up!, that the program amounts to a Ponzi scheme.
"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie," Perry said. "It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them."
Later, in Des Moines, when a reporter asked about the suggestion that his campaign was backing off some positions in the staunch states-rights book, Perry said, "I haven't backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right."
National conversation
He told the Ottumwa crowd that for people who are drawing Social Security or near eligibility "like me," he wasn't proposing a change in the program. But he said there should be a national conversation about potential changes for others, including raising the age of eligibility and establishing a threshold based on a person's means.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
And he's just starting to build up steam. The tracks lead straight to the White House!
There is potential!
It is already that. It is approaching insolvency since longer-living folks are receiving more benefits than what they put it with earnings.
ANY plan that brings about a fiscal solution to the problem will need to include 'means testing' due to simple mathematics. And, yes, that is not "fair". So what? The higher earners don't care and they also know if they "keep" their SS their taxes will just increase somewhere else to make up for it.
The problem needs a more permanent solution and I'm sure a high percentage of American voters prefer an "unfair" SS "welfare program" to senior citizens homeless in our streets.
It shows Gov. Perry is not afraid to speak the truth unlike politician who won't touch the 'third rail'.
He's also telling this to the young voters, not the senior citizens. It is a LIE to continue to have the young workers pay into a 'fund' that they are told they'll receive benefits from later if that is impossible they way the system is currently run.
Of course there won't. And no doubt all those seniors will believe him, a man who has quoted Milton Friedman on Social Security as the 'tyranny of the status quo' and who called it a 'crumbling failure'. In his book, Perry comes up with dozens of good reasons why Social Security never should have been started in the first place. But nowhere in that book is anything about what to do about it now or guaranteeing it for those currently on it. So if Perry tells those looking for solutions to 'read my book' then they aren't going to come away with any warm feelings.
You and I both know that that problem goes WAY deeper than a mere government program and requires a cultural and spiritual solution.
Time for "warm feelings" is over. It's reality time and seniors (like me and a lot of others I know) understand it. We have children and grandchildren and we will do anything to give them a chance for a future.
You have obviously mistaken me for someone who has posted that ending SS will be the solution.
But peeing on that third rail could cost him a couple of states.
He's also telling this to the young voters, not the senior citizens. It is a LIE to continue to have the young workers pay into a 'fund' that they are told they'll receive benefits from later if that is impossible they way the system is currently run.
Since Social Security is currently a pay-as-you-go process, if Perry ends the payments into the fund by the current workers then those on Social Security won't be funded. So wouldn't that mean an end to their benefits as well?
So what is the governor's solution? I must have missed that part in his book.
It will have Perry win in a landslide.
That said, if he can adroitly deal with this issue without scaring the pants off retirees, he'll get a lot of press coverage for tapping on a "third rail" issue.
I’ll give Perry credit - he’s the first major candidate to state the obvious truth about Social Security. Now will he state the same truth about Medicare? How about our national debt? The list is endless for an “honest politician”, I wonder if this is as far as it goes for him?
“You can’t have it both ways.”
This is America......”Yes We Can”.
“He said that any changes won’t affect those on SS now or in the near future...so all those Florida retirees are safe.”
Oh, so he actually did continue the lie.....
For a minute I thought he was being honest about Social Security.
It is the greatest FRAUD ever FORCED on "free" people. It is built on the backs of dead Americans.
DEFUND socialist collectives foreign and domestic. We become very low-taxed, prosperous, productive citizens who live in a country which acts as a beacon for individual liberty...an example for the rest of the world.
"This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations — and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests."
"Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task."
Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
It's the socialism, stupid.
Social security has provided an excuse for the children of the elderly to not step up to the plate and directly take care of - be responsible for - their parents. It is wrong to push that responsibility on to others. There were also direct consequences for not having children. Children that would later take care of you.
We now have big daddy government to push the elderly off on.
If that doesn’t mean you support the end of “big daddy government”, then I apologize for posting to you.
HOORAY Rick Perry for at least saying that much about it. Thanks for posting, Cincinatus’ Wife. Thanks to all posters.
That is all Social Security is. There is no lockbox, you have no account that its just yours, it just social insurance.
The Supreme Court has already said this in 1960, in the case Flemming v. Nestor.
July 18, 2011: Gov. Rick Perry signs health care reform bill into law; Texas fourth state to pass health care compacts bill
"With the signature of Gov. Rick Perry today, Texas has joined three other states stating their intention to enter into a health care compact.
The compact, which would challenge the authority of the federal government to dictate the terms of the federally and state funded Medicaid program, was part of a wide-ranging health care reform bill, Senate Bill 7, passed by the Texas Legislature in its recently concluded special session.
Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri have already signed onto the compacts movement, with Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signing a bill into law on Thursday.
The law establishes Texas, along with the other three states, as pioneers in an uncharted use of Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution which allows states to enter into agreements that, with the approval of Congress, cannot be abridged by the federal government. There are more than 200 state compacts currently in effect, nearly all of them related to commerce.”…..
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