Rick Perry’s Social Security Position Evolves

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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters

With Social Security sure to come up again at Monday night’s Republican presidential debate, Rick Perry set the stage with an op-ed in USA Today that, er, contextualizes his recent descriptions of Social Security as “a Ponzi scheme” and a “failure.” Now, I subscribe to the view that these views aren’t as politically outrageous as they may seem; plenty of Americans believe–inaccurately, I should say–that Social Security is an unsustainable program that will deliver few if any benefits for today’s young workers. (In fact with small tweaks to its revenues and benefits the program can run just fine for many decades.)

At the same time, Americans want the system to work. The public overwhelmingly supports the idea of a social safety net for retirees. The danger for Perry has been tonal–that his diagnosis of the program’s alleged flaws reveal a hostility to its existence. And Perry’s book, Fed Up!, makes that hostility fairly explicit. But I think he can dig himself out of this with months of tonally moderate, level-headed statements to the effect that the program is in real trouble unless Washington gets more responsible about budgeting.

And that’s the sweet spot Perry aims for in his op-ed today: “The first step to fixing a problem is honestly admitting there is a problem,” Perry writes. “America’s goal must be to fix Social Security by making it more financially sound and sustainable for the long term.” Perry also tries the neat trick of turning his intemperate comments into a virtue, by presenting himself as a fearless truth-teller, writing:

Americans deserve a frank and honest discussion of the dire financial challenges facing the nearly 80-year-old program….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.

The devil here will be in the details. Paul Ryan got a certain amount of credit for his candor, but the specifics of his Medicare plan seemed to terrify middle-of-the-road voters. (And it’s worth recalling the Ryan dodged Social Security entirely.) My guess is that Perry will wind up offering a plan that fiddles modestly with Social Security, frightening no one (and impressing the likes of the Wall Street Journal op-ed board). If Perry gets the GOP nomination, the Obama campaign will bombard him with advertisements casting him as an enemy of the system. But by then he will have had months to present himself, boringly and reassuringly, as a concerned repairman. Look for him to begin with Monday night’s debate.

P.S. As National Review impishly notes, plenty of non-radical Republicans have called the system a Ponzi scheme before. Check out Michael Kinsley using the phrase in 1996.