Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie bashed liberals who opposed his entitlement reform policies on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” accusing them of “defending the rich.” (VIDEO: Christie Slams NYT At CPAC: ‘I Don’t Care What They Write About Me’)
INGRAHAM: Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times today says you want to “torch Social Security,” and that you don’t understand that Social Security was universal program for retirement benefits, regardless of the income of the people who put that money into the system their working years.
It’s not welfare, it’s what you paid into the system. How would you respond to that?
CHRISTIE: It’s good to see the left are defending the rich, Laura. It’s a very interesting turn of events. When you actually try to talk common sense to people, the left immediately now goes to defending people who have more than $200,000 a year in retirement income?
I mean that fact here is this: I want Social Security to be there for the people who really need it. I don’t want the elderly in this country to live out their latter years in poverty. And we’re spending more than double what we collect in taxes on Social Security today. It’s headed toward insolvency in the next fifteen years.
I just don’t believe we should be headed in that direction. And Democrats of course, their solution is take the cap off of the payroll tax so taxes increase even more in this country. I’m not for that, I think we can do this in a common sense way. And I think that’s what my proposal does.