Among GOP Candidates, Not a Single Friend of Social Security

The Strengthen Social Security Campaign has created a guide evaluating the “friendliness” of six Republican candidates, “Among Republican Candidates, Not a Single Friend of Social Security.” The Campaign has also produced longer individual profiles of Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich’s particular records on Social Security.

Some key take-aways that may have slipped by casual observers of the 2012 race can be found in the Strengthen Social Security Campaign’s guide to the Republican candidates (click link for version with supporting quotes not included below):

• Every candidate except for Rick Santorum has smeared Social Security a Ponzi scheme, fraud or unconstitutional.
• Although Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have never explicitly endorsed raising the retirement age, it is almost beside the point, because they both are outspoken advocates of much more radical changes. Paul thinks Social Security is unconstitutional and should therefore be dismantled. Gingrich would like to privatize the program along the lines of the Chilean or Galveston model. (Unfortunately both approaches failed their participants. See Economic Opportunity Institute on Chile, and Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times on the Galveston plan.)
• Despite Romney's early claim to be a defender of Social Security, he supported George Bush’s attempt to privatize the program.

Here is the Strengthen Social Security Campaign’s guide to the Republican candidates (click here for a pdf with supporting quotes not included below):

Click here to download this chart with supporting quotes as a PDF.

Additional Detailed Fact Sheets:

Newt Gingrich

Rick Perry

Mitt Romney

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future