Memo to GOP: Social Security demagoguery is the province of liberals | David Limbaugh | Columnists | Washington Examiner

Memo to GOP: Social Security demagoguery is the province of liberals | David Limbaugh | Columnists | Washington Examiner

It is very disheartening to see Republican presidential primary candidates racing to out-demagogue one another in denouncing Texas Gov. Rick Perry's accurate description of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. It used to be that Republicans at least waited until the general election campaign to pander to liberals.

I admire Perry both for telling it like it is and for having the guts to stand by his statement when under fire. That shows character.

Honest people have been warning for years that our entitlement programs, as structured, are imminent train wrecks. Democrats were even saying it for a while, as Bill Clinton and Al Gore made a phony fuss about placing Social Security in a lockbox.

It's nothing short of outrageous that our politicians' instincts are to attack those who are talking realistically about entitlements instead of join them in talking realistically. I understand Democrats not doing so; I don't even expect them to anymore. But it's unacceptable for Republicans to pile on.

Surely, everyone knows by now that our out-of-control entitlement spending poses a greater threat to the nation's future even than the unbelievably dangerous path of discretionary spending we are currently pursuing. Indeed, isn't the main reason most of the Republican candidates claim to be running that they want to help save America's financial future and get the economy going again?

Then why would some of them opportunistically embellish and even distort Perry's statement about Social Security? Politics is one thing, but their decision to grovel on this critical issue does long-term damage to our ability to defeat Democrats on the issue of entitlement reform and otherwise to secure passage of legislation that would restructure reforms.

For decades, the straight shooters among us have been pointing out that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. What would you call a plan that has forced Americans to entrust a significant portion of their earnings to politicians who have raided them as if they were general revenue?

Don't you dare tell me that there is nothing wrong with this practice because these greedy, do-gooder politicians have substituted government IOUs in place of the Social Security revenues, which should have been earmarked for recipients. An IOU from the government is a fraud; it's a chimera; it's a phantom asset, especially when the government itself is bankrupt.