Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson came to Texas Republican governor Rick Perry’s defense over the weekend, backing the Texas governor’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.”
“Certainly, my approach was not to go out of my way to say things that scare people,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview with the National Review Online. “When you just calmly and coolly lay out the facts and the figures, people kind of come to the conclusion that, yeah, I understand why he’s calling it a Ponzi scheme.”
The Wisconsin Republican, who was elected in 2010 with the support of the Tea Party, is the first Republican to come to the defense of Mr. Perry. The Texas Republican is facing criticism from both sides of the aisle after reiterating his claim during Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate that Social Security is little more than a Ponzi scheme.
“It is a Ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you’re paying into a program that’s going to be there,” Mr. Perry said at the time.
Speaking with the National Review, Mr. Johnson linked the current structure of Social Security with Bernie Madoff, the infamous investor convicted of deceiving investors in the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
“[Social Security] looks an awful lot like what Bernie Madoff had done to his investors. … When you have an unfunded liability of $17.9 trillion dollars, when you’ve taken $2.5 trillion from the trust fund and basically spent the money, it’s gone, that falls in line with the definition of a ‘Ponzi scheme’: You lure investors in and pay those folks off in return with the new investors’ money,” Mr. Johnson said.
Still, the field of Republican presidential candidates have increased their criticism of Mr. Perry in recent days. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney slammed the Texas governor in a recent flied sent out to supporters in Florida, saying Mr. Perry would “kill” Medicare.
