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 ...
No, we can’t agree that there’s a lie in there somewhere. Social security is a ponzi scheme that should be dismantled, but it would be monstrous to simply kick the elderly and retirees to the curb by refusing to pay them anything at all any more.
The only “lie” here is from those who think that it’s just as simple as repealing the social security taxes, shutting down the SSA, and putting a stop-order on any outstanding benefit checks.
Just because social security is a ponzi scheme that should not have been set up in the first place is no excuse to impoverish people who made their retirement plans on the reasonable expectation that they would get social security when they retired.
Dumping elderly retirees into the street to satisfy some “foolish consistency” of a coterie of so-called conservatives is the real monstrosity here.
“Yes, it is the point. A point you failed to make in your #54”
Now now....the response in #54 was specific to the statement that “social security is solvent for years”
and this IS a thread on social security.
Perhaps if we called Social Security “THE FIRST NATIONAL SAVINGS BANK AND TRUST” it could get a trillion dollar bailout from the Fed. and Congress.
“Just because social security is a ponzi scheme that should not have been set up in the first place is no excuse to impoverish people who made their retirement plans on the reasonable expectation that they would get social security when they retired.”
My judgmental friend, it is the nature of EVERY “Ponzi Scheme” to end abruptly.
The end of every Ponzi is inherently unfair to everyone who hasn’t gotten their money out.
What is cruel is to not deal with the reality that Social Security IS a ponzi scheme and will end abruptly one day.
Perry’s proposal is to give the impression that younger folks won’t have to pay, and that older folks won’t have any risk of ever not receiving a check. That is a baldfaced political lie of the type every politician tells, whether democrat or republican.
“Perhaps if we called Social Security “THE FIRST NATIONAL SAVINGS BANK AND TRUST” it could get a trillion dollar bailout from the Fed. and Congress.”
While you are obviously kidding, your proposal has all the sound financial elements of just about any government program.
“A little less personality cult”? That is a laugh. You’ve not been quite so sanguine about personality cults when it comes to the Palin cult that flourishes around here.
More to the point, if you think that there is some sort of a “lie” - your word - in the view that social security is a ponzi scheme that should no longer be foisted on the young but yet that current retirees should continue to get their full benefits, and you think that younger generations should no longer be subjected to the social security taxes, then you are necessarily wedded to only one view: social security benefits to current retirees should be cut off immediately.
Why? Because so long as you take the position - as you do - that social security should no longer be imposed on current workers, then benefits have to be cut to current retirees because any other means of funding those benefits - either out of general revenues (i.e., income taxes) or out of additional federal debt - will necessarily impose the costs of those benefits on current workers, either through immediate increases in income taxes, or through increases in income taxes later on when that additional debt has to be paid.
You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. And a foolish consistency is still a hobgoblin of little minds, whether they be left-wing or right-wing.
I fully expect social security to be means tested, and for me to lose my SS benefits that I paid for (supposedly) for 40 years.
And the good news is that doing that WILL show what it has always been - a welfare program for old people.
I dislike Perry on a number of issues, and will never trust him, but I will probably vote for him. I’m not as confident as many conservatives that this election will be a cakewalk. I expect it to be a hard fought battle, with the media lying every step of the way. It will be fought with all the intensity and dishonesty of the union fight in Wisconsin, and Perry - who is well left of me - is about as far right as has a hope of winning. And while I trust Palin, she honestly lacks the executive experience needed to make things happen (as did Obama, and look what that has bought the left).
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“You’ve not been quite so sanguine about personality cults when it comes to the Palin cult that flourishes around here.”
LOL....Palin isn’t running, nor has she proposed anything on Social Security, but as a politician, I’m quite sure she’ll lie about social security just like Perry does!
“More to the point, if you think that there is some sort of a “lie” - your word - in the view that social security is a ponzi scheme that should no longer be foisted on the young but yet that current retirees should continue to get their full benefits, and you think that younger generations should no longer be subjected to the social security taxes....”
This is precisely the lie that Perry is telling, my friend.
” ...then you are necessarily wedded to only one view: social security benefits to current retirees should be cut off immediately.”
No, I am wedded to the view that as a ponzi scheme, Social Security WILL end abruptly, and that we should be preparing as families with older members, and as local communities to deal with this problem that is as sure to land at our feet as the end of the Perry-declared “Ponzi-Scheme”.
You must be wedded to the view that a Ponzi Scheme can go on forever, which is a decidedly incorrect view.
“You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. And a foolish consistency is still a hobgoblin of little minds, whether they be left-wing or right-wing.”
As I explained above, I do not have it both ways as you say.
However, if I agree with you completely, we’ll both be completely wrong - so allow me to be realistic about the demise of Social Security, and I’ll allow you to continue to believe that somehow this is a Ponzi Scheme unlike the rest.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The resemblance is striking.
You think the SS recepients in Floriduh don’t think SS is a lie? Everyone knows its a ponzi scheme, the trick is to get what you can back it before it goes bellyup.
Regarding the GenX’ers, most will still be hangin out at Mom’s any way.
Now, now, isn't it really a thread about Perry's statement that SS is a "monstrous lie", which certainly opens the discussion to the possibility that both Perry and the posters here are putting far too much emphasis on the future problems of SS and far too little on the future problems of other government programs, several of which are even bigger demands on US finances than SS.
People who think SS is our biggest future financial problem are seriously mistaken, but SS about all some are able to focus on.
“The resemblance is striking.”
I note you do not deal with your own foolish consistency, but you can quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, so somehow feel that you’ve made some sort of point.
So be it.
I would call "reform" what would be required to wean people off the teat.
I don't think it would be right to take it away from people who paid into it all their working lives. I can think that way because...
I'm just thankful I never paid into it and never got a check.
“People who think SS is our biggest future financial problem are seriously mistaken, but SS about all some are able to focus on.”
As you’ll note, I do not suffer from this problem. I repeatedly point out, as you will no doubt be happy to find, that SS comes out of the same pot of federal spending as everything else.
Which foolish consistency is that? Please demonstrate the inconsistency between the view that social security is a ponzi scheme that should be wound down but not so abruptly that it leaves 80 year old widows in the gutter?
Me, too and I never conributed to SS.
Congress wants their hands on that money IMO.
“I don’t think it would be right to take it away from people who paid into it all their working lives.”
But the problem is that Perry declared it (truthfully) a “monstrous lie” and a “Ponzi Scheme” - so therefore if you believe Perry, and I do believe him, then you believe that Social Security, as a ponzi, will end abruptly.
Therefore what do we do to insulate people from this eventuality? I think we all know that another federal government program is not the answer......
Why is it, that instead of discussing the topic, you must say it’s not enough and so it is a worthless topic?
If you don’t want to talk about it, find another thread where the topic has something complete and robust enough for you to exercise your genius.
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