Rick Perry On Social Security

I caught Sean Hannity's interview with Rick Perry last night. It covered a wide range of topics, but I was particularly interested in Perry's responses on Social Security.

Suffice to say, Perry has no clear idea of what he would do about Social Security. The essence of his replies were to say, about three times, that those on or nearing eligibility for Social Security would get their benefits. For middle-aged, 45 and under Americans, Perry punted.

Clearly, he's smarting from the 'Ponzi scheme' remark. He defended it, but was obviously worried that older Americans think he's for repealing the entire program.

Of course, those few of you who are regular readers of this blog know that, personally, I would repeal it. It's an illegal and ill-advised Ponzi scheme created by idiots nearly 80 years ago. It was badly-designed then, and it's worse now. Most importantly, one must realize it was never going to be solvent as a general-pool, defined-benefit scheme.

Now, I'll allow that Perry mentioned the various solutions others have offered, e.g., a general nod to anything Paul Ryan says. Perry vaguely mentioned an IRA-like personal account to be self-managed, as well as a conventional, government-run account.

Basically, Perry won't commit to any one solution. So he's either just playing politics, truly can't decide what he believes, or both.

Which leads me to this conclusion.

Whether it's Mitt or Rick, either one, flawed as they are, will be better than letting Wonderboy ruin America for four more years, come November of next year.

There May Be Hope For Truth On Social Security!

I was watching Fox News last night to see post-debate coverage of CNN's almost-unnoticed 'Tea Party' debate on Monday evening. I actually stumbled across it as it ran live, but mistakenly thought I'd found a rerun of MSNBC's GOP presidential debate of last week, so skipped on to other channels.

Never the less, the general sense of the pundits was that there are now too many fringe candidates in these debates, i.e., Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and probably Newt Gingrich, too. That the debates have evolved/degenerated into everyone beating up on Perry because he became the front-runner within a week of entering the race.

But something very interesting occurred on Sean Hannity's program last night.

Hannity often has pollster Frank Luntz air live focus group reactions to speeches or debates, then does Q&A with the group to ascertain their motivations and reasoning.

Last night, Luntz polled the group on their reaction to the Romney vs. Perry exchange concerning Social Security. Perry came out and bluntly called the program a Ponzi scheme. But, more tellingly, and a first, as far as I can tell, Perry described the program as, to paraphrase as closely as I can recall,

'An eighty-year old federal program that was badly designed.'

Now, Perry's allusion to SS becoming a state program makes no sense. It's not supposed to be a temporary social welfare service like unemployment or medicare. If you're going to have some national minimum pension assistance, it should be nationally-funded.

That said, Perry is the first candidate to my knowledge to begin to label it an old idea that should be scrapped because it was badly conceived and implemented. He said the purpose was necessary, but not this program.

Here's where it got interesting. Almost all of Luntz' focus group backed Perry and derided Romney as a phony. One guy actually aped Bill O'Reilly's body language lady, Tanya Reiman, noting how often Romney blinked, moves his hands on the podium and looked away when uttering Social Security-related platitudes which the audience said sounded like pandering to Democrats.

In general, they liked and applauded Perry's blunt and honest depiction of SS, while they loathed Romney's sucking up to Democrats and conventional wisdom, lying about the program's integrity.

Maybe there's hope yet for a total restructuring of SS from a general defined-benefit scheme with no limits, to an individual, account-based defined contribution program with payments from the federal government based on a one-year lagged fixed percentage of Treasury receipts. No COLAs or anything like that. The recipients share economic pain or rewards along with employed Americans who fund the program.

I know I'd never be elected on my views. Because, if it were up to me, the transition would be sudden and abrupt. Basically, anyone now drawing SS payments could continue on the program they entered. Everyone else, no matter how close they are to collecting payments, would be put into the new fixed-percentage, defined contribution account scheme.

Period.

The entire program was never a solvent concept. Time to just scrap it quickly and totally.

Rick Perry's Texas Economy

I've been thinking recently about the comments would-be detractors have made concerning Governor Rick Perry's state's economy.

We know from various reports that Texas has created more jobs than any other single state in the past several years. Perhaps even the decade- I forget. And, more than any one state, I believe over a period of years, Texas has created more jobs than all other states combined.

It sounds like a really good story.

Then Democrats and Mitt Romney weighed in to say that those are low-wage jobs. Wonderboy's education secretary said he pities Texas kids for having to settle for such poor schooling.

Romney, in a recent debate, reminded Perry and viewers that Texas is blessed with gas and oil. Assets for which Rick Perry can take no credit.

Separately, a Texas university economist, while a guest on Tom Keene's noontime Bloomberg program, described the state's social safety net as 'thin.' Jobless benefits are low and of short duration. State spending on social benefits are, on the whole, low by national standards. And, yes, he said the jobs were, on average, low-paying by national standards, as well.

So we are left with the image of a large state which has coped with an enormous net inflow of residents, made the most of its energy resources, kept taxes and spending low, allowing for job creation which has absorbed the bulk of those new residents.

My question is, regardless of what credit Rick Perry does, or does not take for the Texas economy and employment situation, can and does the US, as a nation, want the Texan solution?

If Rick Perry replaced Wonderboy in the Oval Office tomorrow, what would he do to ignite job growth? Cut unemployment benefits? Social Security? Other entitlement spending?

Mind you, personally, I'm all for that. But I'm not sure that's what voters in Massachusetts, Illinois, California and other solidly blue states are expecting.

It's not clear to me that Rick Perry's Texas is a role model for employment strategies that we want to implement nationwide. In fact, regardless of Texas' spending on social programs, we really can't afford Texas-style employment nationwide.

It's not Rick Perry's fault that Texas is not home to more high-value-added, high-paying jobs. Financial service firms aren't chock-a-block in Austin, Dallas or Houston. Nor are many other large, white-collar sector employers which pay high compensation for high-value work.

Which, I think, means that Rick Perry's policies for facilitating job growth in Texas may not really matter much to the rest of the US, unless we are ready to implement, almost immediately, the drastic reduction of federal entitlement programs of which many speak, but none, save Paul Ryan, have really dared describe in detail.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't vote for Rick Perry. But it does mean I'd be cautious about believing he can transfer much of what has worked economically for Texas to the federal level very soon.

Rick Perry's Leap In The Polls

Rick Perry's surge past Mitt Romney in last week's GOP voter polls of presidential candidates stunned many observers. If I recall correctly, the former now leads the latter by nearly double digits.

By moving into the lead, Perry returns a spotlight to Texas, home of three former presidents. And, incidentally, a state which teaches creationism, rather than evolution.

I remember being similarly embarrassed when Mike Hickabee was leading GOP polls four years ago, and Arkansas, the state he governed, became known for the same weird educational doctrine.

How in the world, in this century, can any US state really be officially sanctioning the teaching of creationism? How is this possible?

It makes our country a laughingstock when we have serious presidential contenders who were the executives of states with this position on mankind's history. Not to mention makes you question the intellect and attitudes of people who were governors of such states.