Rick Perry: GOP Is Too Timid To Call Social Security A Ponzi Scheme

WASHINGTON -- The fault lines of the next major policy debate are beginning to emerge as Texas Governor Rick Perry called out Republicans for refusing to label Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."

Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation to promote his new book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington," the Texas Republican said that he had a tete-a-tete with presumptive Speaker John Boehner on Saturday. Over a couple of hours, the two touched base on the election results and upcoming legislative priorities. Top of the list, Perry said, was Social Security reform and the need to move oversight of the entitlement program away from the federal government and to the states.

"There have been a lot of political figures, totally and absolutely afraid to talk about [the fact] that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme," said Perry. "My eldest child is 27, my baby is 24 and they know, they know that Social Security is not going to be there for them. So let's talk about it. What are some of the options out there? And I think that is one of the great roles that governors can play, leading that conversation. Many of us would like to be in charge of those pension programs."

"The message from John Boehner is very clear, that he was listening Tuesday night and that finding the solutions to the challenges that face us as a country emanate from the states," he added.

Traversing the country to promote his book, Perry has driven a lot of speculation about a possible presidential bid. In that regard, bluntly calling out Republican lawmakers for their timidity on Social Security would seem like an effort to set the bar for other Republican White House aspirants. The facts are, of course, a bit fuzzy. Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037 and about 80% benefits indefinitely after. But policy minutiae isn't really Perry's point.

The governor, fresh off winning a third term in office, offered a customary dismissal of any 2012 talk, though in a rather counterintuitive way. He cited the book as evidence that he wouldn't fare well in a campaign for the White House -- "If you need a reason, Exhibit A, that I'm not running for the presidency is, I wrote this book."

But if he personally is keeping 2012 at arm's distance, he isn't shy about weighing in on the prospects of other potential candidates.

"The health-care plan out of Massachusetts, I will suggest to you, is too much like the health-care plan that was passed in Washington," Perry told a separate gathering of reporters Monday morning, in a shot at Mitt Romney's White House hopes.

Comments

[baileywick]

11:56 AM on 11/21/2010

Let's all get something straight. Social Security didn't implode. It was the banks and Wall Street that collapsed upon themselves because conservatives gave them all the things they wanted, and they abused them. Banks, Wall Street and the mortgage and loan CORPORATIONS, NOT Social Security, which has remained solvent for longer than any of those others.

[MinerSam]

09:08 PM on 11/17/2010

When the Republicans had 100% control: White House, Senate & House of Representatives
they collected 1.5 In Social Security SURPLUS...Which was approximately the same amount
of Tax cuts they gave the Rich at the time,

[pategp]

06:38 PM on 11/14/2010

Someone needs to tell that as_hat governor from Texas that there wouldn't be a problem with Social Security if nearly every administration since it's inception had not borrowed money from the fund in order to pay for other things and filled the fund with a bunch of useless IOU's. If somehow we, the people, could stop the Congess which supposedly represents us from doing that and get them to start paying back what's owed into it, then Mr. Perry's children, grandchildren, etc would not have to worry about the issue.

[arttex]

05:12 PM on 11/12/2010

I think good ole molly ivins said it best "Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them......

[F Grey Parker]

06:41 PM on 11/10/2010

one of our contributor's latest

http://handthatfeedsyou.blogspot.com/2010/11/rick-perrys-offensive-charm.html

[gwinegarden]

11:32 AM on 11/09/2010

Is there something about states bordering on Mexico? Maybe they are getting bad tequila.

[rh654]

11:28 AM on 11/09/2010

While I support SS - let's face it - it is essentially a Ponzi racket - the money is coming in from new people to pay out people who put in their money long ago...

[JasonWS]

04:03 PM on 11/09/2010

It bears a similarity, but so do cash of cash funds or even savings accounts that are invested in mortgage securities that depend upon the property values to increase over time. Social insurance has at its heart and understanding and "hope" that populations increase and those populations bear the burden to maintain 10% or so of us who cannot afford to retire without assistance and/or risk poverty. Even pension funds bear a resemblance to a ponzi scheme when you consider how non-vested members sometimes have to leave their investment behind. Social Security is not that simple of an idea. It's something Thomas Paine started talking about in 1795 and we'll probably still be struggling with in 2095, if we're lucky.

[nfatt1]

10:27 AM on 11/09/2010

Rick Perry, Govenor of the Village idiots.

[noaxe397]

08:33 AM on 11/09/2010

Absolutely no doubt Social Security will be on its way to extinction for future generations if real Americans don't start pushing back now.
 
We've seen this play before by Republicans.  First, they co-opt the language of the issue.  They learned in 2005 that "privatization" didn't work.  So now they call it "entitlement reform" and even Dems fall for for that.
Then you next demonize the issue with terms like ponzzi scheme, implying there is something morally, if not legally, wrong with the system.
Garaunteed you will not hear Dems and progressives utter a sound in pushing back against this.
The easiest thing would be to call SS what it really is: an insurance program.   Many Americans have some type or another of insurance.  It's a part of all of our lives.  So explaining SS in these terms is something the average voter can understand and is not threatened by.
But then, if Dems did that to try to take back the frame and the message, it would put them at odds with Obama's attempt to end SS as we know it.

[changemaid12]

10:46 AM on 11/09/2010

Obama is not for ending SS but eliminated the tax cuts for the most wealthy ( which should be eliminated) to fully fund the program.

[James Leo]

07:45 AM on 11/09/2010

Rick Perry barely received 39% of the Latino Vote! If the Latino vote was a bigger percentage of the total vote Bill White would be governor. Nate Silver reports by 2020 Latinos voters will outnumber Anglos and Texas will turn Blue. (Assuming Latino voter patterns stay the same)

[aadunlapesq]

10:06 AM on 11/11/2010

hallelujah! help is on the way! to Rick Perry in his own words "adios, Mofo!"

[marlyt51]

07:30 AM on 11/09/2010

I saw this idiot on the Daily Show.What a fool!

[6bd]

07:27 AM on 11/09/2010

"Legislature likely to cut deep to meet possible $25 billion budget gap

Texas faces a budget crisis of truly daunting proportions, with lawmakers likely to cut sacrosanct programs such as education for the first time in memory and to lay off hundreds if not thousands of state workers and public university employees.

Texas' GOP leaders, their eyes on the Nov. 2 election, have played down the problem's size, even as the hole in the next two-year cycle has grown in recent weeks to as much as $24 billion to $25 billion. That's about 25 percent of current spending.

The gap is now proportionately larger than the deficit California recently closed with cuts and fee increases, its fourth dose of budget misery since September 2008." Jed Lewison

[grf67]

05:57 AM on 11/09/2010

Is Texas still in the union and who cares what perry thinks or says?

[andiannj]

03:41 AM on 11/09/2010

Supposedly, Raygun doubled the SS taxes on the baby boomers as a way of funding baby boomers' retirement as well as their parents. He really doubled the SS taxes so he could partially conceal what his reckless tax giveaway to the rich did to the financial stability of this country. Doubling it created a huge windfall in the form of a back door income tax on the poorest. It was suppose to be temporary, to cover the huge number of Baby Boomers retiring all at the same time. The extra half was suppose to go into a trust fund for the Boomer's retirement.

So, what happened to that money? Now everyone pays twice the amount necessary and the government claims it can't afford Social Security. They took our money and now they don't want to pay it back. Of course they'll still expect us to keep paying into it, but now it will go to tax cuts for the wealthy instead of going toward our retirement. If ever there were a call for mass mobilization to thwart the most hypocritical financial theft/scam in American history, this is it.

[changemaid12]

10:48 AM on 11/09/2010

I heard Bush and Cheney dug into it.. also the two refunds to Americans came out of here as well. they should have been left where they were....

[andiannj]

01:52 PM on 11/09/2010

The really big hit to SS came when Bush decided to raid it to cut taxes for his rich friends. SS is one of the most regressive taxes we have. It starts with the first dollar earned by even the poorest, part-time, minimum-wage worker and it cuts out at a little over $100,000, but they'd rather have the minimum-wage worker pay the bills than ask the millionaires for another penny in income tax.

[moongal6]

03:15 AM on 11/09/2010

Social Security does not add one penny to the deficit. It never has, it never will.
Period.

[nfatt1]

10:29 AM on 11/09/2010

Doesn't matter, when your trying to steal the money to pay for more tax breaks for the greedy.