Mike Huckabee on Friday took a sledgehammer to reform conservatism, simultaneously panning proposals from Wisconsin’s Rep. Paul Ryan to overhaul Medicare and Gov. Chris Christie to revamp Social Security.
The former Arkansas governor, a likely Republican presidential candidate, told reporters that he might support alterations to both entitlement programs on the margins, provided the burdens fell mostly on younger Americans just entering the work force. But Huckabee said anything as ambitious as the Ryan or Christie plan would impose unfair hardships on Americans who have made retirement plans based on programs they are compelled by law to contribute their earnings to.
“Suddenly now you’re going to tell me: ‘You know what, we screwed up, we didn’t build this thing like we should have, and so our fault but you’re going to have to suck it up and pay the penalty.’ I would say, it’s not just no, it’s you-know-what no, that we’re going to rip this rug out from under people who have dutifully paid in their entire lives to a system,” said Huckabee, who left his Fox News show in January in preparation for a 2016 White House run.
“I don’t know why Republicans want to insult Americans by pretending they don’t understand what their Social Security program and Medicare program is,” he added during a roundtable with reporters in Washington.
Ryan, the House Ways and Means chairman from Wisconsin and 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate, is not running for president. But New Jersey’s Christie probably is, and Huckabee’s criticism constituted a shot at a potential rival who hopes that his bold Social Security reform proposal will vault him into contention for the nomination. Huckabee said he would reveal clues to his 2016 plans Friday evening in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
Christie’s plan calls for gradually raising the retirement age for Social Security eligibility, as well as instituting an income means test that would prohibit wealthy retirees from accessing benefits, essentially turning the program for these seniors into a wealth tax. Christie has said it would prevent worse alternatives, such as removing the income cap on Social Security taxes and taxing every dollar earned.
Huckabee didn’t raise his criticism of Ryan and Christie unprompted, and it’s unclear how the Christie Social Security plan will play in the emerging GOP 2016 primary. The two entitlement programs are popular with seniors, who are high-propensity voters. From the standpoint of a general election, slamming fellow Republicans for embracing overhauls of these programs could make sense politically.
But Republicans across the party’s ideological spectrum have come to embrace the idea that Medicare and Social Security are fiscally unsustainable and have to be reformed if they are to be saved for future generations, making Huckabee’s sharp critique an interesting play. Ryan’s Medicare reform plan was not deemed a negative for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney three years ago.
“I’m not just being specifically critical of Christie, but that’s not a reform, that’s not some kind of proposal that Republicans need to embrace,” Huckabee said.
Asked if he could support Ryan’s Medicare overhaul, which has passed in the House and would only kick in for younger workers while preserving the current system for older Americans, Huckabee described his own preference: “If you want to make a proposal that starting with those who are just now going into the work force we’re going to give you some options, but we’re going to guarantee everybody who is in the system as of right now … we’re not going to change the rules on you.”
He added, “But I think most of these proposals are proposals that sound good but the practical nature of trying to implement them would be disastrous.”
