Posted on 08/25/2011 12:35:26 AM PDT by Tempest
The Perry campaign has distanced itself repeatedly from controversial passages in the book since Perry declared his candidacy Aug. 13.
Perry wrote of Social Security that it was created “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.” He likened the program to “a Ponzi scheme” and claimed Social Security was “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.”
Again, a Perry spokesman walked the governor back from what he had written.
The book was meant as “a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto,” and should be considered as “a look back, not a path forward,” Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan told The Wall Street Journal last Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Why is he walking back from these statements? They are true, and a majority of Americans agree with them.
I read the whole article. There is not one quote from gov. Perry in it. I do agree with one quote from the spokesman “We can’t undo more than 70 years of progressive taxation and worsening debt obligations overnight.” It will take a while to fix all that is wrong with our federal government, no matter who is elected.
No, they don’t offer quotes because the author talked to a spokesman, not the Governor.
They did the same thing when Ryan made his proposal to change the system.
Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson
“..... if Palin does not run but Perry does, he’d probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, ..... Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare! …… Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson”
Also see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2764368/posts
How is it a shifting position to say that something is a good idea but can't be done right away? I'm all for a flat(er) tax, but why push for it as an immediate and central pillar of your campaign when it's going to be demagogued to death by the left?
Everybody knows perfectly well that our tax code is jacked, but the system will resist anything other than incremental change.
If they can't knock him out over the next several weeks, it is only going to make him stronger in the long run. The caricature they are creating of him will not hold up once America really gets to know him.
They made the exact same mistake with Reagan.
If we can somehow get a President Perry to actually govern like Reagan, we'll be in business.
Narses:
“..... if Palin does not run but Perry does, he’d probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, ..... Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare! …… Posted on Friday, July 01, 2011 10:13:29 AM by Jim Robinson”
Actual Jim Robinson Quote:
"The presidential race is heating up. We now have conservatives Bachmann and Cain officially in the race fending off RINO Romney; and Palin and Perry could possibly jump in. My hopes are with Palin, but if she decides not to run I could be happy with Bachmann or Cain. Also, if Palin does not run but Perry does, he'd probably suck all the air out of the race. Either way, Palin, Bachmann, Cain or even Perry would all be excellent alternatives to Obama the commie. Anyone but RINO Romney the big government chief architect of CommieCare!"
Jim Robinson, July 1, 2011
It's all in the editing and can I completely understand why you would want to edit out those parts.
I find myself pretty much in complete agreement with JimRob (as usual).
Uh… don’t you need quotes from NOW to show he’s saying something different NOW from what he said then?
“Either way, ..... Perry would all be...”
Excuse me, but you are using a partial quote from Jim to make it appear as though he is endorsing rick perry, which he isn’t. And you have posted it more than once, so you’re spamming it. Who comes before perry?
If you are going to use a quote, shouldn’t you give the link, or at least the full quote? This is very misleading and very dishonest.
Thank you. That’s what I thought.
For education purposes, here's the portions of the book, Fed Up!, on Social Security:
"And there you have it: the vaunted New Deal did not bring the country out of the Great Depression, but the bigger problem now is that its numerous programs never died, and like a bad disease, they have spread. The impact of the New Deal is staggering not just because of the number of programs but also because of their scope. Certain of these programs massively altered the relationship between Americans and their government with respect to critical aspect of our lives, violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles of federalism and limited government.
By far the best example of this is Social Security. A New Deal invention, it was clearly intended to be a permanent fixture of the entitlement state FDR was constructing. Private pensions were largely solvent and performing, despite the Depression. Even though the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, the fact that no retirement benefits would be paid until 1942 contradicts any notion that it was directed at an emergency. Moreover, retirement benefits were not payable until age 62, when the life expectancy at the time was only 60.24 And FDR beat back a popular proposal for a private option. Apparently FDR agreed with Progressive senator Robert M. La Follette, who explained why Washington should not give people a choice:
If we shall adopt this [private option], the government having determined to set up a federal system of old-age insurance will provide, in its own bill creating that system, competition which in the end may destroy the federal system…. It would be inviting and encouraging competition with its own plan which ultimately would undermine and destroy it.25
FDR was aware that Social Security would not be good for the job market, when jobs were what Americans needed most. He had to admit that the payroll taxes used to fund the program would lead to further unemployment by increasing the costs of hiring a worker. “ ‘I guess you’re right on the economics,’ he said, ‘but those [payroll] taxes were never a problem of economics. They are political all the way through…. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.’ ”26 And this was just the beginning, as Arthur Altmeyer, chairman of the board charged with administering Social Security, noted:
Passing the law is only… the “curtain raiser” in the evolution of such a program. It is already possible to distinguish at least three phases of this evolution… first, the double-barreled job of setting up administrative machinery and of getting it into operation; second, the development and integration of administration and services within the present framework; and third, further expansion to liberalize existing provisions.27
In 1939, not even five years later, the program was expanded to provide dependents’ and survivors’ benefits, and to begin monthly payments in 1940, two years earlier than originally planned.28 Of course, payroll taxes have increased substantially as well over the decades, starting at 2 percent but standing now at more than 12 percent.
Social Security is something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now. Because of that, as Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman wrote, the program “is one of those things on which the tyranny of the status quo is beginning to work its magic. Despite the controversy that surrounded its inception, it has come to be so much taken for granted that its desirability is hardly questioned any longer.”
Perry, Rick; Newt Gingrich (2010-11-15). Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington (pp. 49-50). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.
===============
Aren’t you wondering about the Social Security Trust Fund you’ve heard so much about? Well, it must be somewhere in Al Gore’s lockbox, right next to his notes from inventing the Internet and that global cooling data he doesn’t want anyone to see. The term “trust fund” leads one to believe that there is a stockpile of assets that can be drawn on to pay benefits. Not so. This trust fund is an elaborate illusion cooked up by government magicians.
Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, meaning that current payroll taxes are used to fund benefits. Any extra revenues have funded general government obligations for generations in return for IOUs from the U.S. Treasury.14 Thus, it is a ruse for politicians to tell us not to worry, because there’s $2.4 trillion in the Social Security Trust Fund.15 While it is true that there is an accumulated accounting surplus in this amount, the surplus exists only in a “bookkeeping sense,” as the Office of Management and Budget admitted in 2000.16 Washington has already blown the money. You can think of it as an IOU that we’re all going to have to pay.
Kevin Williamson summed up the situation in an article in the National Review:
Suffice it to say, we’re a bit short of that $106 trillion. In fact, we’re exactly $106 trillion short, since the total value of the Social Security “trust fund” is less than the value of the change you’ve got rattling around behind your couch cushions, its precise worth being: $0.00. Because the “trust fund” (which is not a trust fund) is by law “invested” (meaning, not invested) inbonds, there is no national nest egg to fund these entitlements…. Seeing no political incentives to reduce benefits, [Bruce] Bartlett calculates that an 81 percent tax increase will be necessary to pay those obligations. “Those who think otherwise are either grossly ignorant of the fiscal facts, in denial, or living in a fantasy world.”17
The really bad news is that Social Security has finally reached its tipping point. No more free lunch. For the first time, the program will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the year, and this is just the beginning.18 So, keeping in mind that there really is no trust fund, this means that our debt will increase all the faster as we pay out more than we take in.
For too long, politicians afraid to face hard facts have been patching Social Security together with Band-Aids. They have been making fraudulent promises to the American people in order to perpetuate their own political careers, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, as the saying goes. An aging population with large numbers of retirees now wants to cash in on those promises.
Ponzi schemes—like the one that sent Bernard Madoff to prison—are illegal in this country for a reason. They are fraudulent systems designed to take in a lot of money at the front and pay out none in the end. This unsustainable fiscal insanity is the true legacy of Social Security and the New Deal. Deceptive accounting has hoodwinked the American public into thinking that Social Security is a retirement system and financially sound, when clearly it is not.
If only the New Dealers had been kind enough to allow workers to make their own choice about whether to participate. As we know from experience, individuals would have done better on their own. Indeed, many private pension plans return 8 percent per year, compared to Social Security’s paltry 2 percent or less.19 Also, before the government padlocked the door in 1983, municipal governments were allowed to opt out of the system. Fittingly, three Texas counties—Galveston, Matagorda, and Brazoria—did so. In 1981, Galveston county employees, for example, voted 78 percent to 22 percent to leave Social Security for a private option.20 Employees in those private plans, having exercised their liberty at Washington’s sufferance, are reaping the benefits.21
By any measure, Social Security is a failure. As author Jim Powell points out in FDR’s Folly, one pro-FDR historian justified Social Security not on its merits but as an important “symbolic gesture to demonstrate that Roosevelt’s heart was in the right place.”22 This sounds a lot like justifying the current administration’s policies because well-meaning politicians want to provide “hope.”
Now, if you say Social Security is a failure, as I have just done, you will inherit the wind of political scorn. Seniors might think you want to cut the benefits they have paid for. Politicians will seek to take advantage, stirring up fear about benefits that will be lost if you elect another “heartless Republican.” I get it. That’s why only retired senators chair entitlement commissions.
Perry, Rick; Newt Gingrich (2010-11-15). Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington (pp. 60-62). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.
He’s not contradicting himself - it looks like the writer wants to get him to say he’ll repeal SS and his spokesman won’t go along with the straw man.
Do you suppose this is too much information for the public to absorb? It is an accurate statement.
The original intent of Social Security was to "supplement" one's retirement income, but it has been morphed into something else by the Democrats, and badly mismanaged.
Prolly not a good idea to purposely misquote the site owner.
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