Ron Paul used to be a resolute libertarian when it came to entitlements. During his 1988 presidential bid, he called them “unconstitutional” and said he wanted them gone. As recently as 2000 he signed on to a Republican Liberty Caucus statement holding that “the federal entitlement to Medicare should be abolished.”
But this campaign season, Paul has moderated his tone. Oddly enough, he’s in some respects weaker on the issue than the leading Republicans.
Take Paul’s official fiscal-reform plan, the “PlantoRestoreAmerica.” It has many merits — it eliminates five cabinet departments, slashes $1 trillion in spending, and purportedly will balance the budget in year three of his presidency with no tax increases. But its entitlement reforms merely tinker around the edges of the problem: He’d distribute funding for Medicaid and other welfare programs to the states in the form of block grants, keep the current Social Security system for retirees and near-retirees, and allow young people to opt out of Social Security if they want to.
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This isn’t too different from what front-runner Mitt Romney, an establishment Republican from Massachusetts, has proposed — with the exception that Romney’s plan would actually take steps to fix Social Security (e.g., he would increase the retirement age and reduce payments to wealthier beneficiaries) instead of leaving it as is and giving young people the option to leave it. Romney has endorsed allowing private plans to compete with Medicare as well, whereas the text of Paul’s plan does not even contain the word “Medicare” (and the accompanying budget tables hew closely to standard projections of how much the program will cost without reform). Newt Gingrich, meanwhile, would transition Social Security to a personal-account system, in addition to block-granting welfare programs and allowing private plans to compete with Medicare.
According to Gary Howard, Paul’s press secretary, the candidate is “interested in pursuing” deeper entitlement reforms — including raising the retirement age and limiting benefits to the rich — despite not including them in his plan. “Dr. Paul also supports Medicare reforms that give senior citizens more control over, and responsibility for, their own health care,” Howard says. “He would support the type of reforms championed by his colleague Paul Ryan, and he would also support expanded access to Medicare Health Savings Accounts.” Howard also emphasizes that Paul is the only candidate to support allowing the young to completely opt out of Social Security.
But if Paul’s support for entitlement reform is deeper than the “Plan to Restore America” would suggest, the candidate doesn’t seem too eager to make it known. To the contrary, Paul has taken to saying publicly that cuts elsewhere in the budget can make entitlement reform unnecessary, at least in the near term. After the New Hampshire primary he said that if we “cut this overseas spending, at least we might be able to allow the Social Security beneficiaries to get their checks and medical care be provided.”
And last year, when PBS asked him how he’d balance the budget, he detailed his cuts to overseas spending and cabinet departments, and then said, “You don’t have to go and cut health care or medical — or Social Security — in order to start getting our house in order.” When the interviewer claimed Paul had “talked about dramatically scaling down or reforming Medicare and Social Security,” he corrected her — “Well, I haven’t talked a whole lot about that” — and reiterated his desire to cut military spending and allow young people to opt out of Social Security. When the interviewer essentially repeated the question, again claiming that he’d spoken of making serious changes to Medicare, he again corrected her and emphasized his opt-out plan.
***His proposals to eliminate five cabinet posts and slash overseas spending to the bone are so far-fetched that they wouldn’t be useful even as a starting point for negotiations.***
And thus, dear readers, we see Exhibit A of the timidity of conservatism that has led this nation to the brink of financial ruin.
You can't even find the guts to propose $1T in cuts/elimination of five cabinet departments, merely as a starting point for budget negotiations, and yet you require of conservative lawmakers that they walk a political plank in order to set themselves up for being accused of making grandma eat dog food.
Ron Paul has taken a stand to save the Republic from rapidly approaching death brought on by the warfare-welfare state. Those entitlements are just now starting to see deficits, after decades of running surpluses. The real pain in still ten years off. Which of course means we need to start reforming them TODAY, but not for people on them or just about to be on them. To do otherwise would, once again, be political suicide.
I thought the policy was to point out that he's crazier than an outhouse rat. That said, his views on entitlement reform seem to be beside the point. Cordially, Bill
Nice attempt here at ''outPauling'' Ron Paul, but the point of his plan is actually to give a opt-out option, which might help phase out Social Security.
I wouldn't say he is weak on entitlements. It seems it is not as high of a priority as it requires the approval of Congress to deal with. The overseas spending seems to be the most pressing of our immediatly controlable problems and wants to stop the profuse bleeding (spending) and attack the debt which is the real threat that can destroy American superiority and prosperity. Romney fails to realize this which is why even if nominated, he will utterly lose to obama in a general election as NOBODY sees a difference between the two outside of skin color. He promised to even take America back to the moon and increase even MORE spending, and thinks reducing projected military increases is "cuts"!
The republican establishment seem committed to giving obama another 4 years. Where Obama is horridly weak on civil liberties and domestic policy, only Ron Paul offers a complete contrast in foreign, domestic, and monetary policy. The rest of the field seems to think they can beat obama with the same policies.
Ron Paul knows entitlements aren't constitutional, but he also knows "we live in a time in which we've taught people to be totally dependent on government", and that we can't just cut everything immediately. There should be a transition.
If Congress had passed one of his bills to say that money for Social Security couldn't be spent on anything else, Social Security would be in much better shape. But as it is, it's unfair to cut out seniors who've paid in all their lives and been told there was a "trust fund".
If you have a plan, you also have to have a way to pay it, or it is a moot point. As far as I see, Mitt doesn't have a way to pay for it, except to print more money.
And I'm not sure yet how realistic Gingrich's plan is, but he doesn't seem to be very good at managing money.she lo
Why is it everytime NR brings up Paul, it's a hatchet job? Nice poll, yesterday - "Excluding Paul, who would you vote for"
Paul has the youth vote - don't marginalize. The more I read the more I see, that Paul scares the crap out of establishment conservatives and liberals alike.
Why he is has not been given the respect he deserves is just another reason to like him. The people no longer want the media to pick their candidates.
Something wrong with my previous comment?? You guys aren't suppose to mention Ron Paul's name! Period! It might give people the impression he is running for office. Heaven forbid!
Have you actually listened to what he said about this issue?
He has said repeatedly that he wants to see sweeping reform and eventual abolishment of entitlements, but he realizes it would be a weaning process. He is not so cruel as to cut off the elderly and those approaching the retirement age from social security nor medicare.
They have paid into it their entire lives and deserve to be compensated. Why would Paul advocate further victimizing the victims of government schemes?
What he would like to see happen immediately is the end of entitlements to rest of the WORLD, like foreign aid that lines the pockets of dictators and does virtually nothing to help the people of these nations. Or how about the piles of cash we give to corporations (and obsolete industries to keep them chugging along?) THOSE are the entitlements that need to end NOW.
Before you comment on a candidate's agenda, why not actually LISTEN first?
I suppose this is an improvement over NRO's normal posture, which is that Ron Paul is a kooky isolationist and the drug pusher's best friend. It is somewhat surreal, however, to read that Paul is a revanchist for the welfare state.
This is like a typical hit job where the conclusions are offered in advance of logic or facts. Even the quotations provided in the story sustain Paul's position that dependencies advanced by the federal apparatus are unconstitutional, demeaning, and inefficient -- yet the author apparently can't parse actual english language that emerges from Paul's mouth.
Perhaps if one starts with an examination of what Paul says and does (and has said and has done over 25 years in Washington), one might be able to understand what he's up to. If that were a goal of NRO, which is unclear.
As of Monday Paul is in a statistical tie with Obama in two national polls, and NRO is scuttling its own ship between trying to decide between three progressive who have promised to continue borrowing from China to pay for everything from democracy-at-gunpoint to retirement benefits for rich people.
Just be done with it and change the name of NR to NeoCon Review.
Right now Social Security and Medicare aren't adding to the deficit. Down the road they will. Our overseas spending is a huge part of the deficit. Fighting endless war in the Middle East. We need to bring the troops home from Japan, Korea, Europe, and the Middle East. Time to let go of the empire and get our fiscal house in order. Tell the NeoCons to drop dead. They are a cancer on the Republican party.
Social Security and Medicare stopped collecting more in taxes than it paid out in benefits in 2010 and 2008, respectively. They're adding to the deficit right now, and within 10 years they will be adding a lot more than the cost of keeping a few ships in Japan.
Claiming that overseas basing is a more pressing fiscal problem than ballooning entitlements is pure fantasy.
I don't think Dr. Paul has argued that if we pull out of countries in which we have no national interest - like Germany, whose threat comes not from Soviet missiles but from Greek intractability - we will have no further reforms to make and our fiscal house will magically be in order.
The sequence and order of reforms matters. One must plan that sequence to maximize support and effective yield. The fruits of the first step must be invested toward the second step's success. That's true in a family, in a business, and in affairs of state.
Get the budget in balance, stop the fed from pump-priming with funny money, and when the economy gets better, and more people are self-reliant, then reform the instrumentalities that perpetuate dependence.
The thing about SS is this: before it was created, nearly half of older Americans had income below the poverty line. Today, only about 12% are considered poor.
To fill the funding hole (caused by them borrowing against SS), Congress could raise the amount of salary subject to Social Security tax. Those who make more would pay more, legal immigrants and public-sector employees would be included.
That is a much better solution than privatising (to replicate SS benefits, you would have to buy disability insurance, a life insurance policy and an inflation-protected annuity all separately — and it wouldn't be cheap) or doing away with it (and bring back those 'golden' years where many seniors lived in poverty).
Your comment contains a poor metric. Of course most seniors had poverty-level income: they weren't living off of income, but savings, owned assets, or the care-taking of family members.
I know savings is fast becoming a foreign concept (known only to the Germans, apparently), but Americans used to be much better at thrift. They also used to not consider staying with family a type of burden that was shameful. Instead, it was the circle of life - you rear your children to be successful enough to leave the nest, and then when they build their own nest, they repay the favor by respectfully taking care of the person(s) who helped them grow into capable adulthood.
Also, social security's age of benefits used to be set at the average life expectancy, so a lot of seniors didn't see much of it, anyway!
As I think someone said above, Ron Paul has said numerous times that whilst he would like to eliminated entitlements and welfare spending immediately, but he realizes that the situation that we have gotten ourselves into neans that it will take awhile to make it happen. People have had their incomed forcibly taxed to fund Social Security accounts - this limits their ability to go out and save as much as they might have on their own for retirment. In the case of voluntary requirements like Medicaire , they have distorted markets and driven up health cost. so much that some people have been forced to resort to them.
What does this actually say about Ron Paul . It says that he is bold but is also circumspect and careful. Much more " living in the real world" than his detractors
would admit to.
In fact, and its never mentioned (often neither by his suporters) that he would take a similar tact with withdrawal from foreign engagements. - we wouldn't just pull out of overseas places over night without accompanying it with a long careful strategy
(discused with our military commanders ) and managed process which gives us time to fully develop our other foreigh policy tools and allow other nations time to pick up the burden of defending themselves.
Amazing - Ron Paul is soft on entitlement cuts? What would you have him do Mr. VerBruggen cut everyone off the day he takes office? I suppose it would then be easier for you to label him a crackpot or out of touch. Ron Paul understands these are deep-seated problems, as stated by previous posters, it will take a generation maybe more to unwind these massive programs. Simply cutting off entitlements with a hatchet would create divisive chaos to the system. Ron Paul understands this, and I think his supporters understand this. Gradual fade outs are what we are looking for not hatchet jobs that spin people into a frenzy. I'm 35 and I deeply resent paying into a Social Security system that I know will be insolvent when I reach retirement age (I have advanced degrees in finance and economics so please don't debate me on that point). Despite this resentment, I do not wish to punish the generations before me rather I want a solution to correct the problem that will allow me to opt out over time whilst allowing those who came before me a fair measure of access to their money - a lot of which has been misappropriated by Congress and the Senate (see Bernie Madoff).
Amazing - Ron Paul is soft on entitlement cuts? What would you have him do Mr. VerBruggen cut everyone off the day he takes office? I suppose it would then be easier for you to label him a crackpot or out of touch. Ron Paul understands these are deep-seated problems, as stated by previous posters, it will take a generation maybe more to unwind these massive programs. Simply cutting off entitlements with a hatchet would create divisive chaos to the system. Ron Paul understands this, and I think his supporters understand this. Gradual fade outs are what we are looking for not hatchet jobs that spin people into a frenzy. I'm 35 and I deeply resent paying into a Social Security system that I know will be insolvent when I reach retirement age (I have advanced degrees in finance and economics so please don't debate me on that point). Despite this resentment, I do not wish to punish the generations before me rather I want a solution to correct the problem that will allow me to opt out over time whilst allowing those who came before me a fair measure of access to their money - a lot of which has been misappropriated by Congress and the Senate (see Bernie Madoff).
I encourage all of you to click on link in the story to the Republican Liberty Caucus statement from 2000. It is a statement of what the Republican party would be if it had guts. If you like it, join the RLC. We have to take back the party before we can take back the Republic.
