Did Perry Blow It on Social Security? (Marco Rubio and Ron Johnson certainly didn't)

National Review Online ^ | September 9, 2011 | Mona Charen

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There is a brand of Republican who looks at President Obama’s vulnerability on the economy and says, “Go for it!” They argue that the overriding issue of the campaign should be jobs — and that everything else should be a distant second.

There is another kind of Republican who sees the election of 2012 as a tipping point for the nation — a do-or-die moment when we will either pull back from the precipice of debt and national decline or fall off the edge. This second brand of Republican is hoping that a candidate will emerge who can lay before the American people the nature of the challenge we face in a direct and forthright way. If a campaign is run and won on the need to reform our obese government, the new president will have a mandate to take the necessary steps once in office.

After Wednesday’s Republican debate, it seems that Mitt Romney represents the first group, and Rick Perry stands for the second.

Members of the first camp — and it includes lots of smart people, such as Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Mike Murphy — may agree that defeating Obama is critical, but they argue that it’s tactically stupid to mention the looming bankruptcy of “popular” federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare. At Wednesday’s Republican debate, Mitt Romney, responding to Rick Perry’s earlier description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” planted a flag and declared that “our nominee has to be someone who isn’t committed to abolishing Social Security, but who is committed to saving Social Security. . . . I will make sure that we keep the program and we make it financially secure. We save Social Security. And under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure. It is working for millions of Americans, and I’ll keep it working for millions of Americans. And we’ve got to do that as a party.”

Rubbish. How can you deny that a bankrupt government program is a failure? As for whether it’s a Ponzi scheme, well, when the program was adopted, there were 17 workers for every retiree, and the average life expectancy was 58 for men and 62 for women. By 2035, there will be an estimated 2.1 workers for every retiree, and life expectancy — even if it remains at 2011 levels (male 75, female 80) — will still be about 18 years longer. What Perry said was the simple truth: There will be no funds for 25-year-olds to draw upon when they reach retirement age.

There was a time when Social Security was a net asset to the government — which is why the federal government routinely raided the funds raised by the Social Security payroll tax to spend on other programs. But that is no longer true. As the Social Security trustees’ 2011 report documents, Social Security added $49 billion to last year’s budget deficit and is projected to add $46 billion to this year’s deficit. And $2.6 trillion of our $14 trillion national debt is owed to the Social Security trust fund. Or rather, “trust fund.”

This reality was dramatized during the debate over raising the debt ceiling, when President Obama attempted to scare seniors by warning that Social Security checks might not go out on time if recalcitrant Republicans continued to refuse to raise taxes. He thus exposed the naked truth — that the trust fund is bare and the checks to current and future beneficiaries depend upon taxes and borrowing.

The Romney Republicans want candidates to tiptoe around the question of entitlements, as if the truth will be too harsh for fragile voters to hear. But the voters are not so sensitive — nor so uninformed.

A Gallup poll taken in May found that 67 percent of Americans believe that Social Security and Medicare are already creating or will within ten years create “a crisis for the federal government.” That included 54 percent of Democrats. Another 19 percent expect the crisis within 10 to 20 years. Only 4 percent said the programs would not create a problem for more than 20 years, and 7 percent said “not in the foreseeable future.”

To face the facts about Social Security is not to throw granny over the cliff, as the Democrats would have it. There are reforms (such as the program adopted by Chile, as Herman Cain mentioned and as I wrote about recently) that would offer a better return for retirees and a better deal for younger workers. Republicans can also fairly propose gradual increases in the retirement age.

Either Americans are going to solve this problem by facing up to it, or they aren’t. But Republicans cannot hope to sneak the issue past the voters during election season with dishonest palaver and then impose a solution — or worse, join the Democrats in denial. On this issue, Rick Perry was treating voters as adults.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Wisconsin's Ron Johnson ("liberal" Wisconsin) and Florida's Marco Rubio (God's waiting room Florida) treated the voters as adults and the ADULTS elected them to serve!

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson called Social Security a ponzi scheme and took Russ Feingold's Wisconsin seat. [snip].....>>>In a move to head off criticism from his opponent, Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, Johnson put his Ponzi comparison at the center of TV and radio ads that began running Sept. 15, 2010.

"I'm going to tell you what Senator Feingold and his allies' next attack against me will be," Johnson says in the radio ad. "They're going to tell you I said Washington politicians have run Social Security like a Ponzi scheme.

Johnson goes on to say: "I did say that, and it's true. During his 18 years in the Senate, Russ Feingold and politicians from both parties have raided $2 trillion from the Social Security trust fund. They spent your savings. The money is gone. And what did we get? Bigger government, wasteful spending and an IOU."<<<.... [snip]

Johnson beats incumbent Feingold [snip]....>>>U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold had the experience. Oshkosh businessman Ron Johnson had the message. In the end, the message won. [snip] Early on, his inexperience showed in several political missteps. He angered some by waffling on whether to sell his BP stock after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, got in hot water by using the word "licenses" when referring to gun "permits" and was ridiculed for theorizing that sunspots could be responsible for global warming. But none of that seemed to hurt his momentum.<<<....[end]

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio Says Social Security And Medicare Make Americans Weak And Lazy >>>>>....“These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.”<<<....

Rubio-Crist Debate .......>>>[Marco] RUBIO: I think all of that has to be on the table, including the way we index increases in cost of living. All of these issues have to be on the table. They have to be options that I would be open to. They are included in the Ryan roadmap. I think it's the right approach to Social Security reform.

[Chris] WALLACE: Governor Crist, we looked all over your campaign Web site. Frankly, we couldn't find a word about Social Security reform.

[Charlie] CRIST: Well, I think it's important that we understand Social Security must be saved. It must be protected. The idea of having a higher age for people to be able to be eligible for Social Security really flies in the face of an awful lot of my fellow Floridians and it's something that I would not advocate.

I think we need to take the fraud out of Social Security, the waste, as with -- it is in Medicare as well. I'd like to get back to something that you were talking about with the speaker, and that is taxes."<<<...

[org.whodat]

I am glade it has been brought up, now we may be able to find out why Americans social security has been spent on illegals. The money went somewhere.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

GOV. RICK PERRY: Social Security is " a monstrous lie” “a ponzi scheme”

Perry Campaign: Remember When Romney Compared Social Security to a Criminal Enterprise? [quote from Romney's book] " What would happen to the bankers responsible for misusing the money? They would go to jail. But what has happened to the people responsible for the looming bankruptcy of Social Security? They keep returning to Congress every two years.” [end quote]

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

The Obama administration and many economists have warned of economic catastrophe if the United States does not raise the amount it is legally allowed to borrow by August 2.

MITT ROMNEY [09-08-2011 GOP PRIMARY DEBATE] "I will make sure that we keep the program and we make it financially secure. We save Social Security. And under no circumstances would I ever say by any measure it’s a failure. It is working for millions of Americans, and I’ll keep it working for millions of Americans. And we’ve got to do that as a party.”

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Goldwater Talking Point (gearing up for Rick Perry) ........>>>Carter’s campaign eventually had to drop the “he’s too radical” approach and instead do what the left is now doing to Rick Perry — claiming Reagan actually did nothing to help people in California when he was Governor. They tried to destroy the idea of California as a paradise, which in 1980 was a place millions were flocking to in search of work, just as people are now going to Texas.

It did not work. Neither the Goldwater narrative nor the “he sucked as Governor” narrative worked for Carter because, quite simply, the public had given up on him.

The greatest lesson to take away now is that the media is going to again fixate on Goldwater from 1964 and Kerry from 2004, and they will probably mostly ignore the most historically relevant election points — Carter in 1980 and George H. W. Bush in 1992.

History doesn’t repeat itself. The media does.<<<

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I am glade .....

We're well aware of that. Get it fixed.

[org.whodat]

Do not catch all the changes my Droid makes, take it up with Droid.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Rick Perry: "The Promises and Platitudes' Aren't Going To Cut It".....>>>Few in the crowd seemed to be concerned about Perry’s use of the term “Ponzi scheme” to describe Social Security despite the criticism he has been drawing even from other Republicans. (Perry did not use that phrase on Thursday.) In fact, some of his supporters appeared to be embracing “Ponzi scheme” as a rallying cry. Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, a Perry backer, who spoke ahead of the governor, praised Perry’s use of “provocative language.”

And Micki Blair, a teacher from nearby Corona, Calif. who said she was leaning toward Perry in the primary, agreed.

“I don’t think his rhetoric is too strong,” she said. “I think that people are mature, have a brain. They can figure out that if you don’t put enough in, you can’t pass it all out. It just doesn’t work that way.” <<<...

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Do not catch all the changes my Droid makes, take it up with Droid.

Grow up.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"GOING into last night's Republican debate, Rick Perry would have known that people were going to take him to task for his stated views on Social Security, which he has called unconstitutional and a "Ponzi scheme." And when they did, the governor came out swinging. Based on the rapid reactions on Twitter and around the blogosphere, I'm outside the pundit mainstream in thinking that this answer was effective in political terms and even defensible on the merits. Let's look at the exchange:

[snip]

"I wouldn't characterise that as a "monstrous lie", because the phrase implies a deliberate deception, but it's clearly objectionable. Mr Perry was quite right to describe it as a generational issue. He might also have pointed out that the people who are going to suffer the most from the Social Security shortfalls are those who disproportionately depend on it as their major or sole source of retirement income, namely women and blacks. Those demographic dimensions make it all the more strange, in my view, that many Democrats are so insensitive to calls for Social Security reform in general, even if they object to the particular reforms being proposed. Why don't we see some action from them on this? Mr Perry's language here is intemperate, but at least he's starting a conversation."

[sneakers]

It’s about time we stop tip-toeing around the elephant in the living room. We’d better deal with the problem. Good for Perry.

PRIVATIZE!!!!! It’s too late for me - I’m 56 - but I want my son to have the benefits of a privatized system. For the sake of future generations, we have to do something soon.

[DH]

They argue that the overriding issue of the campaign should be jobs — and that everything else should be a distant second.

---

Anyone who is so naive to make that statement has no common sense. Everything else should be a distant second??????

How about replacing the word “jobs” with the word “business?”

Our Fascist/Marxist/Communist government has KILLED BUSINESS and now want us to hire more employees!

From the monumental increases in the minimum wage to the ever “mind boggling” increases in regulations pertaining to both freedom in general and restrictions in business, we have completely “gutted” our industrial base and increased the cost of doing business to the point we can’t compete with any other country.

When I heard Obama’s “employ a thug (union member)” idea I just could not believe that any business would employ someone so that they could get a tax credit for a nominal amount and spend a large amount in that new employee’s cost simply to do so.......without the business increase to justify it! How stupid does Obama think us business owners are?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

How Three Texas Counties Created Personal Social Security Accounts and Prospered AND THEY OWN IT -- a worker in the Alternate Plan owns his account, so the entire account belongs to the estate.

[Rome2000]

Charles Ponzi, small potatoes compared to DC Politicians

[Cincinatus' Wife]

...........increases in regulations pertaining to both freedom in general and restrictions in business, we have completely “gutted” our industrial base and increased the cost of doing business to the point we can’t compete with any other country....

BUMP!

Texas and Gov. Perry have been under attack from the EPA, Big Education Unions and Trial Lawyers (money and muscle against the state and his election) -- and HE'S been FIGHTING BACK!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Mona Charen: Dems have to live in denial

[snip] .........>>> "Democrats must ignore Chile’s remarkable success with privatizing social security. Thirty years ago, facing a pension overhang similar to our own, Chile adopted a policy that nearly all Democrats regard with horror — they privatized their pension system. Not all at once. Those who were already retired were grandfathered into the existing system. New workers were required to participate in the private retirement account program. All other workers were offered a choice to remain with the old system or choose the new one. Ninety-three percent chose private accounts, conservatively managed.

How has it turned out? Over the course of three decades, despite ups and downs in the market as well as terrible earthquakes, these accounts have averaged returns 9.23 percent above inflation. Social Security, by contrast, averages returns of about 1 percent. In the United States, the elderly are wards of the state. Each Chilean, by contrast, has ownership of his account. He or she can pass any unused portion on to children and grandchildren. When New York Times reporter John Tierney worked out his own Social Security contributions on the Chilean model, he found that his privatized pension would have been $53,000 a year plus a one-time payout of $223,000. The same contributions paid into the American Social Security system would have paid him $18,000 a year.

Chile’s free market policies have made it one of the wealthiest nations in the Western hemisphere, with the highest nominal GDP in Latin America. Their pension reform has so far been copied by 30 nations.

Perhaps Chile, so far from Washington, D.C., is too easy to ignore. But what about Galveston, Texas? It seems that 30 years ago, far-sighted leaders took advantage of an opt-out clause (since removed) in the Social Security law and put county employees into private pension accounts. Galveston’s employees take home pensions with 7 percent annual return compounded over 30 years compared with Social Security’s 1 percent.

Democrats must, simply must, deny that privatization provides far superior outcomes, because the truth is that independent, self-sufficient, non-needy citizens have little use for a party whose entire rationale is “Let Me Take of You” by taxing someone else." [end]

[Ann Archy]

It's ILLEGAL now to NOT take your Social Security!! CHANGE this law and I think a lot of well to do people would gladly give up their SS...especially if they didn't serve in the military, or even if they did, they still want to sacrifice.

Then give them a MEDAL or a SIGNED Certificate to acknowledge their sacrifice.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Just now on FOX NEWS, I listened to a spokesman explaining Obama’s new jobs plan — saying it’s all paid for — that the president wants to make sure that the most fortunate are sharing with those less fortunate.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHhhhhhh...........

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The American people see Universal Health Care (the albatross hanging around our necks that's strangling economic growth) for what it is, another HUGE government takeover of their lives THAT DOES NOT, WILL NOT WORK!

Been there! Done that! It's broken! It's bankrupt! It will kill any chance next generations have for freedom! Employers are rejecting it -- they will not hire.

Let states, like Massachusetts with their Romneycare, work as labs for social experiments. If these programs work and people like them FINE, they'll move there and pump up that state's economy. Other states will adopt ideas that work and will avoid those that do not work. WE MUST get away from Federal mandates.

The states SHOULD NOT BE FORCED to a FEDERAL STANDARD — and they should REJECT that which has not worked, not saddled Americans with more of the same.

The voters know what's what.

[Texas Eagle]

...it’s tactically stupid to mention the looming bankruptcy of “popular” federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare

Who doesn't know that Socialist Security and BlueHairCare is insolvent?

Perry should double down and explain why SS and MC are nearing bankruptcy.

[Texas Eagle]

By 2035, there will be an estimated 2.1 workers for every retiree,

The real fun will begin when it gets down to one worker paying for one retirees "benefits".

But, sadly, the fun will be gone once the ratio inverts and one worker will be paying for two retirees.