Fed up with Perry's B.S.
Rick Perry
last Wednesday in his first GOP debate:
I think any of us that want to go back and change 70 years of what's been going on in this country is probably going to have a difficult time. And rather than spending a lot of time talking about what those folks were doing back in the '30s and the '40s, it's a nice intellectual conversation, but the fact is we have got to be focussed on how we're going to change this program.
And people who are on Social Security today, men and women who are receiving those benefits today, are individuals at my age that are in line pretty quick to get them, they don't need to worry about anything. But I think the Republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program, and it is a monstrous lie.
It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you're paying into a program that's going to be there. Anybody that's for the status quo with Social Security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it's not right.
Rick Perry today in USA Today:
I am going to be honest with the American people. Our elected leaders must have the strength to speak frankly about entitlement reform if we are to right our nation's financial course and get the USA working again.
For too long, politicians have been afraid to speak honestly about Social Security. We must have the guts to talk about its financial condition if we are to fix Social Security and make it financially viable for generations to come.
Americans must come together and agree to address the problems so today's beneficiaries and tomorrow's retirees really can count on Social Security for the long haul.
We must have a frank, honest national conversation about fixing Social Security to protect benefits for those at or near retirement while keeping faith with younger generations, who are being asked to pay.
The change in tone between those two statements is obvious, but substantively, it's gobbledygook. Just because he now says "tomorrow's retirees" must be able to "count on Social Security for the long haul" doesn't mean he's suddenly decided that Social Security is a great program worth saving in its current form. After all, Paul Ryan said his plan to eliminate Medicare was actually a plan to strengthen it.
So while we might be seeing a kinder and gentler Rick Perry when it comes to his word choice, I don't see any evidence that he's either (a) acknowledged that he was wrong when he said Social Security was unconstitutional or (b) made any sort of specific proposal about what he would actually do.
Unless he does both of those, he's not actually changing his position on Social Security, he's merely changing the way he talks about it. We'll see if he keeps it up during tonight's debate, but based on that op-ed, it looks like the way he'll be talking about it is out of both sides of his mouth.