Mike Huckabee aggressively defended Social Security from benefit cuts Thursday, saying in the Republican presidential debate that he would save the program by taxing “illegals, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, all the people who are freeloading off the system now.”
Those people, the former Arkansas governor said, don’t pay into the Social Security system because they do not pay payroll taxes. Under his proposed “Fair Tax” consumption tax, however, they would.
On Social Security and several other economic issues raised in Thursday’s debate, Huckabee sought to set himself apart from the other GOP candidates, striking a populist tone and defending entitlement benefits.
It would be unfair, Huckabee suggested, to reduce the benefits of people who paid payroll taxes throughout their careers. “The government took it out of their pocket whether they wanted it or not,” he said.
“It’s always that the government figures that they can do this off the backs of people, many of whom are poor,” he added.
He suggested that part of the problem with Social Security’s finances is the lack of jobs and wages for middle-class and poor people, while people “at the top,” most of whose incomes come from dividends and capital gains and are above the Social Security payroll tax cap, have seen their prospects improve.
On the topic of entitlements, he was asked to debate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has proposed a number of entitlement reforms. Christie’s plan, he has said, would not affect people currently in or near retirement.
Earlier in the night, Huckabee said “the problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington axis of power that has controlled the political climate.”
“The donor class feeds the political class, that does the dance that the donor class wants,” Huckabee said.
