So now, Mitt Romney has positioned himself to the left of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Social Security. Do I need to point out that that’s not going to help in a GOP primary?
Matthews first put forth what he thought Social Security was originally intended to be: “You pay for it while you work. When you retired and have no other form of income, this will help you out. In fact, a lot were impoverished in the old days without Social Security. It’s a great anti-poverty program. But then people started to live past 65. Even the great Franklin Roosevelt didn’t make it to 65. In those days, if you made it to 65, you were lucky. You got a few bucks on Social Security.”
Then he put forth what it has become: “Today, lots of people fortunately make it past 65,” he said. “They live into their 80s and 90s. They’re still getting checks. The system doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s not as healthy as it once was. So, how does a Republican deal with the fact it is a Ponzi scheme in the sense that the money that’s paid out every day is coming from people who have paid in that day. It’s not being made somewhere.”
Mitt Romney took Rick Perry’s obvious and uncontroversial debate comments on Social Security and ran attack after attack with them. Now he’s in a corner and Perry is running clear and armed with the truth and increased credibility.
Nice work, Team Mitt. This is their first unforced error in a while, but it’s a big one that’s likely to stick around.
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