Rich Lowry has an optimistic
column out today touting what he calls the “Honesty Caucus” —
essentially, Tea Party inspired candidates who have been willing to
speak the truth about our looming entitlement crisis. The problem
is, in an article aimed at highlighting gutsy Republican
candidates, Lowry could only muster two examples (other than
current Rep. Paul Ryan).
In his column, Lowry praises Rand Paul and Marco Rubio for their
openness. While Rubio has spoken of raising the retirement age, as
I wrote last week, he’s also said that the time for personal
accounts had “come
and gone” — a position that at one time would have been
grounds to brand him a RINO.
As even Lowry acknowledges, the GOP’s “Pledge to America” dodged
the entitlement issue because serious reform was not a consensus
position among Republican candidates (more
here). In reality, it has been much more common to see
Republicans running away from entitlement reform.
Take just these few examples of GOP candidates gunning for
Democratic seats identified as “toss
ups” by Cook Political Report…
Tom Ganley, a Republican candidate for the seat in Ohio’s 13th
Congressional District, takes this bold stand on
Social Security on his website: “My views on Social Security are
simple. I believe the retirement age should remain the same, that
taxes should not be increased to benefit the program, the program
should not be privatized and above all, the program should be
protected.”
Sarah Palin
endorsed Republican Paul Gosar in Arizona’s 1st District,
writing on Facebook that he, “shares our belief that the federal government’s
reckless spending is putting us on a dangerous path towards
insolvency — and
he’s determined to do something about that.” Yet here’s what Gosar
has to say about Social Security on his
website:
In addition to opposing the privatization of Social Security, I
believe the retirement age should not be raised. We must protect
benefits while keeping our agreement with seniors by not raising
taxes.
Meanwhile, in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, Republican
candidate Scott Tipton has just run an
ad in which he’s surrounded by senior citizens, attacking John
Salazar for cutting Medicare as part of his vote for the new
national health care law, and vowing, “I’ll never put our seniors’
future at risk. No cuts, no privatization, and no scaring our
seniors just to try and win this election.”
Unfortunately, my experience is that these sort of statements on
entitlements are much more common among this year’s crop of GOP
candidates than are statements by candidates admitting hard truths,
and that’s discouraging. In 2004, President Bush was willing to
campaign on Social Security reform, and yet when he tried to get it
passed the next year, he was stymied by a Republican Congress.
While there may be a few standouts elected this year, it’s hard to
see a new GOP majority being any better on entitlements than the
prior GOP majority.
