Rick Perry has the Left in PANIC MODE!

[BT]

Perry calls Social Security, the most popular program the government has ever had "a Ponzi scheme".

He no doubt has far more stupid things to say. I imagine that he will put his foot in his mouth many times before the GOP Convention.

I don't see where he is wrong in describing Social Security as a ponzi scheme, original investors are paid by new investors.

[hnumpah]

Perry's fiery 'Fed Up!' may come back to haunt him

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? Maybe Rick Perry's not so "Fed Up!" after all.

Just nine months ago, the Texas governor released a rhetorical bomb-throwing book under that title. He dismissed Social Security as a New Deal relic that smacked of socialism. He said states' rights trump all else. He suggested that the Supreme Court's nine unelected "oligarchs in robes" could have their rulings overturned by two-thirds votes in both houses of Congress.

Now that the Republican is running for president, his campaign has begun distancing itself from some of the candidate's own words on issues such as Social Security and states' rights.

Pulling back won't be easy because "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington" is anything but the nuanced list of general positions that fills the pages of most presidential candidates' books.

Politicians "typically don't take strong positions. They are largely biographical and usually not specific at all," said Adam Bellow, editorial director of Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, who edited Sarah Palin's two books. "It is unusual," Bellow said of "Fed Up!," ''but we are in an unusual moment."

Perry, who's shot to the top of many public opinion polls among the GOP contenders, hasn't shied away from bashing Social Security. Last month in Iowa, he said the program "is a Ponzi scheme for these young people." Later, he told reporters, "I haven't backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right."

Campaign spokesman Mark Miner said "no one can argue that Social Security isn't broken."

"The goal was to put these issues on the table and ensure they're addressed," Miner said.

But, in his book, Perry goes well beyond criticizing the program's financing problems and vilifies the entire concept as a failed social experiment.

"Like a bad disease," he wrote, New Deal-era initiatives have spread. "By far the best example of this is Social Security." The program "is something we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now."

Already, Perry communications director Ray Sullivan was reported as saying that the book is not meant to reflect Perry's current views on Social Security ? even though "Fed Up" was published just last year.

While skewering the program might help Perry with tea party supporters, it could cost him with elderly voters in Florida and other important states were he to win the nomination, said GOP strategist Ford O'Connell.

"He definitely needs to cut back on the volatile rhetoric and couch his words more carefully or they can come back to haunt him," O'Connell said.

Polling by the Pew Research Center in June found that 87 percent of Americans see Social Security as good for the country. "The views of the public are, it's overwhelmingly positive," said Carroll Doherty, the Pew Research Center's associate director.

Perry's GOP rivals are expected to use the book against him, emphasizing the idea that he might be too extreme for independent voters.

"This year, Republicans believe that losing the election means losing the country," said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist who has worked for Perry opponents but is now unaligned.

"Any candidate who displays general election weakness, because his radical views scared seniors, independents, or soccer moms, would be disqualified in the GOP nomination process. A vote for such a candidate in a primary would be seen as a vote for Obama in the general."

Already, Perry has pulled back from his unequivocal position on states' rights.

In "Fed Up!" he writes, "If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don't come to Texas. If you don't like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don't move to California." Elaborating in July about New York's decision to allow same-sex marriage, he said, "that's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me."

Perry has since clarified that he's against gay marriage anywhere, and last month signed a pledge that, if elected, he would back a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which would preclude a state's choice.

He devotes an entire chapter to lambasting the Supreme Court, anticipating that the justices one day issue a ruling forcing nationwide gay marriage on the country. As a check on judicial power, he proposes allowing Congress to override the high court with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.

"While ideas like that may sound very cogent to Perry, he may have a real problem explaining them," GOP strategist O'Connell said.

The governor has long known his book could be problematic in a national campaign. As the polls closed on election day 2010, giving Perry his third full term as governor, he told The Associated Press that "Fed Up!" proved he was too conservative to seek the White House.

"I think probably the best display, the best concrete evidence that I'm really not running for president is this book," Perry said, "because when you read this book, you're going to see me talking about issues that for someone running for public office, it's kind of been the third rail, if you will."

[Xavier_Onassis]

I don't see where he is wrong in describing Social Security as a ponzi scheme, original investors are paid by new investors.

============================================================
The difference is, of course, that the old investors have been paid their money back for 70 years, which is totally unlike any Ponzi scheme that has ever existed, and that the new investors are REQUIRED to pay a set amount, whereas in a typical Ponzi scheme, the new investors are not obliged to contribute anything, and may contribute as much as they wish.

Another major difference is that the typical Ponzi scheme involves nearly every investor screwed. Social Security has paid its promised benefits to GENERATIONS of people.

There are other differences as well, all you have to do is use your head, which Rick Stupid Perry did not.

His plan to turn the election of Senators over to state legislatures is also a terrible idea.

Perry is a total jerk.

[BT]

I don't see where he is wrong in describing Social Security as a ponzi scheme, original investors are paid by new investors.

============================================================
The difference is, of course, that the old investors have been paid their money back for 70 years, which is totally unlike any Ponzi scheme that has ever existed, and that the new investors are REQUIRED to pay a set amount, whereas in a typical Ponzi scheme, the new investors are not obliged to contribute anything, and may contribute as much as they wish.

Another major difference is that the typical Ponzi scheme involves nearly every investor screwed. Social Security has paid its promised benefits to GENERATIONS of people.

There are other differences as well, all you have to do is use your head, which Rick Stupid Perry did not.

His plan to turn the election of Senators over to state legislatures is also a terrible idea.

Perry is a total jerk.

So the money the old investors, you and I , have paid in is safe regardless of whether new revenues come in?

Like there is a trust fund or lock box or something that contains enough assets to cover the obligations to the old investors?

or will it collapse if new money doesn't come in, just like a Ponzi Scheme.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It is set up so that new money is always coming in, because the law requires it. So long as it does, it is clearly NOT a Ponzi scheme.

And Perry continues to be a moron for saying he wants to abolish Social Security.

[BT]

And Perry continues to be a moron for saying he wants to abolish Social Security.

Where does he say that?

[Xavier_Onassis]

He has said that, and also says that Social Security is unconstitutional.

If a candidate says that something is a Ponzi scheme and unconstitutional, then I think it is safe to say they want to do away with it, unless they are barking mad.

[BT]

He has said that, and also says that Social Security is unconstitutional.

If a candidate says that something is a Ponzi scheme and unconstitutional, then I think it is safe to say they want to do away with it, unless they are barking mad.

They could be urging reform of Social Security, perhaps making it so that Congress can not use those contributions as a slush account  to fund other pet projects.

I'd like to see where he said it was unconstitutional, because my understanding is as long as they define contributions as a tax they are within constitutional parameters.

[Kramer]

He has said that, and also says that Social Security is unconstitutional.

If a candidate says that something is a Ponzi scheme and unconstitutional, then I think it is safe to say they want to do away with it, unless they are barking mad.

You must not understand what the definition of a Ponzi Scheme is.

[sirs]

Charles Ponzi was a Boston swindler who in 1920 bilked thousands of people out of millions of dollars by selling them bonds that guaranteed a fabulous rate of return -- 100 percent in just 90 days. The funds entrusted to Ponzi were never invested in legitimate enterprises. Instead, they were deployed in a classic pyramid scam: The first few investors were paid off with money collected from a larger, second round of investors, whose bonds were in turn paid off with money from a still larger group of investors who came after them. Like all pyramid swindles, which depend on a steadily expanding population of new investors, Ponzi's scheme was unsustainable. It collapsed within months. Ponzi went to prison, and his victims lost most of their principal.

Is Social Security just another Ponzi scheme? Texas Governor Rick Perry is only the latest public figure to make that claim. It's an analogy that provokes heated debate -- not surprising, given Social Security's powerful emotional and philosophical resonance. That might not be a bad thing, if the debate moved Americans closer to solving the program's long-term problems. But it doesn't.

For years, notable voices -- from the late economist Milton Friedman to Senator John McCain to former Slate editor Michael Kinsley -- have warned that Ponzi's ripoff was no different in principle from Social Security. Just as Ponzi's scheme — or the more recent fraud by Bernard Madoff — eventually crumbled when there weren't enough new investors to fund the payouts to the earlier investors, critics argue, Social Security will also fall apart as taxes paid into the system are outstripped by the benefits paid out.

That's the point Perry was making last month, when he called it "a monstrous lie" that younger workers paying into Social Security today can rely on collecting benefits when they retire. "It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people," he told an audience in Iowa. In interviews last fall, he made the same comparison.

But every analogy goes only so far, and there are flaws in this one too. Boston University journalism professor (and former Globe reporter) Mitchell Zukoff, who in 2005 published the definitive history of the Ponzi scandal, notes the dissimilarities. Ponzi's scheme was a deliberate swindle that lured its victims with bald lies and get-rich-quick promises, Zuckoff has written, whereas Social Security fully discloses its operations and makes no promise of huge returns. Ponzi schemes are intended to defraud; Social Security was designed to be a social safety net for the old.

The Social Security Administration itself tackles the issue in a 2,400-word essay that not surprisingly concludes that there is no comparison between a pyramid scheme like Ponzi's and the government's 75-year-old pay-as-you-go pension program. The key difference: The former depends on a never-ending geometric increase in the number of participants, whereas Social Security is simply a financial "pipeline" that transfers income from current workers to current retirees. "As long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money paid out, the system can continue forever."

Ah, but that's the key question: Can that "rough balance" be maintained?

When Social Security began, there were dozens of workers paying taxes into the system for every retiree who was taking benefits out of it.
By 1950, the ratio had slipped to 16.5-to-1.
Now it is a little less than 3-to-1, and continuing to shrink.
When the last of the baby boomers retire, there will be just two working taxpayers for every beneficiary.

In the face of such a demographic tide, isn't Social Security ultimately as doomed as any pyramid scheme?

And yet whole furor over Social Security's "Ponzi-ness" has mostly served as a giant distraction. Back and forth the arguments go -- one side notes with alarm the exploding number of retirees, while the other side says Social Security taxes and benefits can always be adjusted. One side warns that Social Security's future unfunded liabilities already amount to a staggering $20 trillion; the other side points to its huge current surpluses.

But fighting over an analogy gives both sides too easy an out. What Americans should really be wrestling with is not whether Social Security is or isn't a Ponzi scheme, but whether its all-important surpluses are wisely invested. Or whether, to be precise, they are invested at all.

Commentary

[Christians4LessGvt]

Perry: Obama?s Worst Nightmare

The Texas governor would be a very formidable
nominee against President Obama.

By Josh Kraushaar

September 7,  2011 
 
Last month, I laid out the reasons why I thought Texas Gov. Rick Perry was the clear Republican front-runner. I?ll take it one step further: Perry would be a very formidable nominee against President Obama, and he poses a stronger threat than most Democrats realize and many Republican strategists acknowledge.

The hits are already out. Democrats are looking at Perry?s states? rights, anti-Washington manifesto Fed Up! as a gold mine for opposition researchers, eager to pounce on his claim that Social Security is akin to a Ponzi scheme. They think that his skepticism on climate change makes him seem extreme, even as Obama halted implementation of antismog regulations in a last-ditch attempt to help create jobs. Most view Perry?s aggressive defense of Second Amendment rights as a general-election loser; never mind that Democrats haven?t touched the gun-control issue since Al Gore?s failed 2000 presidential campaign, and for good reason. All of the conventional wisdom couldn?t be more off base.

Perry has proven throughout his long career that he?s a canny political observer, and he picked up on the anti-Washington mood enveloping the country long before the smart set in Washington did. On the campaign trail, he may be toning down the language from his book, but if anything, his broad themes of bureaucratic incompetence and government overreach offer a striking contrast to Obama?s agenda and get at many of the anxieties facing Americans today. If Obama could point to a record of job creation, Perry?s musings wouldn?t have the same resonance. To an electorate registering historic levels of pessimism about the future, Perry looks more like the candidate of change?and, perhaps, hope.

Polls show that voters care about jobs and the economy, first and foremost. Perry can point to his record as Texas governor, one of the few states with a record of job creation during the recession. Whether he?s responsible for that record is a debatable point, but politically, it is a clear winner. Second on the list is concern over government spending, and Perry?s book is a virtual treatise against excessive federal spending.

Perry will have to address his views on entitlements, but his vulnerabilities on that front pale in comparison to Obama?s vulnerabilities on the economy. Only 35 percent of senior citizens approve of the president?s job performance, according to Gallup, one of his worst-performing demographic groups. With seniors so down on the president, it?s hard to see Perry?s book quote being a game-changer.

For a case study, look at two special elections that are coming up this month, one in a solidly-Democratic New York City district and one in a rural, Republican-leaning district in Nevada.  In both elections, the Democratic candidates have lambasted the Republican nominees for supporting entitlement cuts and holding extreme views on the social safety net.  In the decidedly liberal confines of Queens and Brooklyn, the Republican candidate has actually embraced such controversial views, and even said he opposed a bill that provided benefits to victims of 9/11.

The Democrats? attacks haven?t resonated.  Instead, dissatisfaction with Obama is so great that the Republican candidate in Nevada is poised to win in a landslide, and the Democrat is barely getting help from the national party. And in the special election race to replace former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner in New York, polls from both sides show a close race.

If the historic 2010 midterms demonstrated anything, it was a massive pushback against Obama?s big government policies?the stimulus and health care reform in particular. Obama saw his 2008 election as a mandate for a more activist government, and his policies created a resistance that is still churning today. Grassroots insurgencies don?t happen in a vacuum. But Democrats are still grasping at polls that show that the tea party is unpopular, even though the antigovernment sentiment that fueled the movement is as powerful as ever. The White House misread the tea party movement from the start, and it seems to be misreading it to this day.

Just look at the president?s decision last Friday to suspend antismog standards, something that goes against the environmental record his administration has proudly stood for. This was a profound concession: Obama is either conceding that excessive regulation can hamper economic growth, or he?s acknowledging the political pitfalls of an activist government. And if the political pendulum has swung so much to the right that even Obama is cutting back environmental protection for the hope of economic growth, it suggests that Perry?s antigovernment views aren?t limited to cranky conservatives.

The other major asset that Perry brings to the table in a general election is immigration. The Republican nominee?s ability to connect with Hispanic voters, concentrated in battleground states like Nevada, Colorado, and Florida, is critical to winning the White House in 2012 and beyond. Perry brings a track record of Hispanic outreach in Texas, and he carried 38 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2010 against Democrat Bill White, in line with George W. Bush?s performance as governor.

More notably, while campaigning to win the conservative Republican base, he has carefully avoided the strident anti-immigration rhetoric that often characterizes the party?s loudest voices. He came out against a border fence?virtual heresy among elements of the right?and didn?t back down from his support of allowing illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition in his state. Perry?s team is playing long ball, and it recognizes the importance of the Hispanic vote and his unique ability to win enough of them over.

Pair Perry on the presidential ticket with an up-and-coming Hispanic running mate such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida or New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, and the Hispanic vote is squarely in play. Gallup found Obama?s approval among Hispanics down to 44 percent. If Obama can?t win over a clear majority of Hispanics, ball game?s over.

With his book, Perry opponents believe they have a gold mine of opposition research, but it hardly raises an eyebrow compared to past presidential nominees.  Jimmy Carter was eager to face Ronald Reagan, who recorded commentaries arguing that Medicare would lead America down a path to socialism.  Bill Clinton avoided military service, admitted to smoking pot (without inhaling), and had to deal with rumors of extramarital affairs during the 1992 campaign.  Both won in landslides against presidents facing rough economic times.

With an economy this weak, and with little expectations of it improving, the Democrats would need a scorched-earth culture war campaign painting Perry as an extremist to prevent his capturing the White House, and even that might not be enough. To quote Democratic strategist James Carville: ?It?s the economy, stupid.? If the economy doesn?t show signs of improving pronto, Democrats could be staring down the face of President Perry in 2013.

http://nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/perry-obama-s-worst-nightmare-20110906