Marco Rubio: Medicare, Social Security ‘Weakened Us As People,’ Made Us Lazy

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Potential vice president running mate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) dismissed the importance of programs like Medicare and Social Security during a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library this afternoon, arguing that the initiatives “weakened us as people”:

These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.

Watch it:

Americans may have certainly taken care of each other in the absence of formalized access to affordable health care, but that support did little to drastically ameliorate the fears and anxieties of seniors. As Ted Marmor explains in The Politics of Medicare, “The biggest fears included not being able to pay for care and risking turning to children or siblings for help, or it meant relying on the charitable attitude of the doctor or hospital. Most profoundly, it was the sense that illness or injury — bad enough themselves — could be disastrous for family finances unless you were lucky enough to have retiree coverage from a union or government plan.”

Indeed, prior to Medicare’s enactment in 1965, “about one-half of America’s seniors did not have hospital insurance,” “more than one in four elderly were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns,” and one in three seniors were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

Motor City Liberal Comment: Actually Marco telling Latinos to vote for a party that will take away their social safety nets harms them not make them stronger.

Likely GOP Presidential Contender Rick Perry Thinks Medicare, Medicaid, And Social Security Are Ponzi Schemes

By Zaid Jilani/Think Progress

It is widely expected that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will be announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination to be president of the United States this weekend.

In the past, Perry has staked out extreme views on a number of economic issues. Last year, he called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” and claimed that Americans who are children today will never receive their benefits. He also used this same smear for the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

In an interview with Newsweek’s the Daily Beast last fall that was just published today, Perry expanded further on his belief that these programs are Ponzi schemes:

INTERVIEWER: In Fed Up!, you criticize the progressive era and the changes it produced: the 16th and 17th Amendments, Social Security, Medicare, and so on. I understand being against these things in principle—of longing for a world in which they never existed. But now that they’re part of the fabric of our society, do you think we should actually do away with them?

PERRY: I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny.Whether it’s Social Security, whether it’s Medicaid, whether it’s Medicare. You’ve got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They’re bankrupt. They’re a Ponzi scheme. I challenge anybody to stand up and defend the Social Security program that we have today—and particularly defend it to a 27-year-old young man who’s just gotten married and is trying to get his life headed in the right direction economically. I happen to think that the Progressive movement was the beginning of the deterioration of our Constitution from the standpoint of it being abused and misused to do things that Congress wanted to do, and/or the Supreme Court wanted to implement. The New Deal was the launching pad for the Washington largesse as we know it today. And I think we should have a legitimate, honest, national discussion about Washington’s continuing to spend money we don’t have on programs that we don’t need.

A Ponzi scheme is an economic arrangement where the money paid into the system by later entrants is paid right back out as benefits to earlier entrants. None of these social insurance programs that Perry mentioned fit this definition. They benefit those who pay into them with guaranteed benefits. One has to wonder if Perry will be able to get away with maligning thesepopular programs on the campaign trail.

UPDATE

Perry also seems to believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional

Ron Paul compares Social Security and Medicare to slavery

By David Edwards

The legality of Social Security and Medicare must be reversed, just like slavery was abolished in 1865, according to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

“You talk a lot about the Constitution,” Fox News’ Chris Wallace noted Sunday. “You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.”

“Technically they are,” Paul insisted. “There is no authority. Article 1, Section 8 doesn’t say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution — liberals are the ones that use this general welfare clause.”

“Doesn’t Social Security come under promoting the general welfare,” Wallace asked.

“Absolutely not,” Paul replied. “Maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state. The military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.”

“That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long. That’s what we have to reverse, that very notion you’re presenting,” he added.

“Congressman, it’s not just a liberal view. It’s the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution,” Wallace explained.

“The Constitution and the court said slavery was legal, too. We had to reverse that. So, I tell you. Just because a court in ’37 went very liberal on us and expanded the role of government, no, I think the original intent is not a bad idea,” Paul opined.

Watch this video from Fox’s Fox News Sunday, broadcast May 15, 2011.

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