Carly Fiorina might be an "outsider" in politics, but she looks like a pro when it comes to not getting herself in trouble when talking about Social Security and Medicare. CNBC's John Harwood continued his
ten questions series in an interview with the failed HP exec and failed Senate candidate, and tried unsuccessfully to pin her down on what she would do to cut social insurance programs, something she suggests is necessary.
FIORINA: The professional political class—Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio among them, but certainly not limited to them—here's where they always fail us. How long have we been talking about entitlement reform? We talk about it every election. We talk about tax reform every election. And guess what? Nothing happens. There are binders full of great conservative ideas on how to reform Social Security and entitlements. And we will never get to it because the political class can't challenge the status quo.
HARWOOD: I interviewed Marco Rubio a couple weeks ago, and asked him about President Bush's failed attempt to partially privatize Social Security, and said, "Do you want to go back to that?" He said, "No, the time has passed for that." Do you think privatization is a useful structural reform to make?
FIORINA: I think there are loads of great ideas on how to make Social Security more financially solvent. I do not think there is a prayer of implementing a single one until you get a leader in the Oval Office who's prepared to challenge the status quo. And I am not prepared to go to the American people and talk to them about how we're going to reform Social Security and Medicare until I can demonstrate to them that the government can execute with excellence, perform its responsibilities with excellence, serve the people who pay for it with excellence.
HARWOOD: Now, that is a dodge worthy of a very good politician.
Actually, it's a dodge worthy of a Republican. She's not going to reveal what her plans for cutting these vital—and popular!—programs until she's convinced she has a Republican Congress to go along with her. Note that she's not rejecting, at all, the idea that the programs have to be sacrificed at the altar of the deficit.
I bet that's the same speech about "excellence" she gave in her job interview for Hewlett Packard. You only need to look at what happened there to figure out how much she really cares about the people.