Mike Huckabee presidential campaign, 2016/Federal assistance programs
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 Mike Huckabee |
Former Governor of Arkansas (1996-2007) Former Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas (1993-1996) |
2028 • 2024 • 2020 • 2016 |
This page was current as of the 2016 election.
- At the seventh Republican presidential primary debate on January 28, 2016, Mike Huckabee discussed why Americans are angry and federal assistance programs: “A lot of Americans are angry. And I think it's important to understand why they are mad. They are mad because they see a government that continues to do fine. They see people at the top. They are doing fine. But that person you asked Rick about a moment ago, that lady that's making 10,000 bucks a year, do you know what our poverty programs do to people? They keep them in poverty. They keep them in poverty because we have these arbitrary thresholds... that mean that if you go to work, you lose all the benefits for your kids, Medicaid, WIC, Section 8 housing, food stamps, and then your kids go hungry. I know a little about poverty. My sister is here tonight. Now both of us could tell you we did not grow up rich. My mother grew up in a house, oldest of seven kids. She had lived in a house that didn't have floors. Just dirt. No electricity. No running water. I resent it when people say, oh, people are poor because they want to be. No, they are not. Nobody wants to be poor. And that's a stupid, foolish thing, mean thing to say. People are poor because they don't know how to get out of the hole. And government shouldn't push them back in the hole which is what our policies do when they punish people who want to go to work and don't let them out. We can fix that, but it takes some leadership to get it done.”[2]
- During the sixth Republican presidential primary debate, on January 14, 2016, Huckabee discussed his position on Social Security: “Well, first of all, let's just remember that Social Security is not the government's money, it belongs to the people who had it taken out of their checks involuntarily their entire working lives. For the government to say, well it is fault of working people that we have a Social Security problem, no. It is the fault of a government that used those people's money for something other than protecting those people's accounts. So let's not blame them and punish them. But here is a fact, and I sometimes hear Republicans say well, we're going to have to cut this and extend the age. You know what I think a lot of times when I hear people say, well, let's make people work to their 70. That sounds great for white-collar people who sat at a desk most of their lives. You ever talk to somebody that stood on concrete floor for the first 40 years of their working life? Do you think they can stand another five years or 10 years, many of them will retired virtually crippled because they worked hard. And we're going to punish them some more? I don't think so. Here's the fact. Four percent economic growth, we fully fund Social Security and Medicare. Our problem is not that Social Security is just too generous to seniors. It isn't. Our problem is that our politicians have not created the kind of policies that would bring economic growth.”[3]
- In an op-ed published on CNBC’s website October 26, 2015, Huckabee defended Social Security benefits against calls to reduce them. “Some Republican presidential candidates want to abolish Medicare, slash Social Security and tell American seniors to ‘get over it’ when it comes to cutting their benefits. They want to rob seniors of their benefits and give them a worthless healthcare voucher instead. Let me be clear: raising the retirement age and slashing Medicare benefits for seniors who have been working for decades is theft!” Huckabee wrote.[4]
- Huckabee wrote an op-ed in The Des Moines Register on August 12, 2015, defending Social Security and Medicare. “Many Americans, like me, have been working since we were 14 years old, and Washington has been pick-pocketing us every day of our working lives. If you work 30, 40 or 50 years, Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars that Washington has confiscated from your paycheck. You could have invested that money and generated a return, but you didn’t have a choice because Washington put a gun to your head and robbed it from your paycheck. … As president I will honor our commitment to our seniors and give them what they paid,” Huckabee said.[5]
- During Huckabee's speech announcing his candidacy for president in May 2015, he advocated for maintaining Social Security, saying, "For 50 years, the government grabs the money from our paychecks and says it'll be waiting for us when we turn 65. If Congress wants to take away someone's retirement, let them end their own congressional pensions, not your Social Security."[6]
- When asked in 2015 by Bloomberg for his opinion on Social Security insurance disability benefits, Huckabee responded, "You never want to make it so that people who are already going through a hardship are going to have a worse hardship, when they're not only fighting a disability but then they're having to fight the government. Sure, you've got to clean up any fraud, and deal with that. But to assume that anyone who is disabled is really fraudulent: I think that's an insult to a person. That's not how we should approach it. We should approach it that people are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. You should make the government prove that a person isn't in need, rather than the person having to absolutely prove that they are."[6]
- Huckabee criticized the Obama administration for permitting states to request waivers on job and job training regulations related to welfare assistance in 2012. In addition to calling the policy change "illegal," Huckabee said, "It’s basically just a transfer of money from the taxpayer to the government, from the government to people who become beneficiaries of the government, because that way the government can own these people. It is a trap, and it is like the roach motel. Once you get in, but you never get out."[7]
- In 2005, Huckabee joined with several other members of the Republican Governors Association in a letter to then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist emphasizing the importance of "[i]ncreased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs" in a welfare reform bill.[8]
- During a 2011 roundtable with reporters, Huckabee said, "It's time to consider raising the retirement age for Social Security and changing the rules of Medicare. I think there's gotta be a revamp, maybe looking at voucher programs to put more control in the hands of the individual patients."[9]
- According to a 2008 Pew Research Center profile of Huckabee, he "issued an executive order forcing Arkansas compliance with federal 'Charitable Choice' laws in order to allow faith-based organizations to compete for funds from state agencies."[10]
- During an October 2007 Republican debate, Huckabee stated his support for "personalizing" Social Security. He said, "Empower individuals to have a greater say over their money. And that’s what it is. Keep the government from robbing the trust funds, which is something that, if it was done in the private sector, would get a guy in jail... One thing, when people reach retirement age, if they really have enough retirement benefits, they don’t need Social Security for the long term, give them the option of one-time buyout, or the opportunity to purchase an annuity, with their funds, tax-free, that frees up the long-term obligation of the government."[11]
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See also
Footnotes
- ↑ USA Today, "Huckabee ends GOP presidential bid," February 1, 2016
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: Fox News undercard GOP debate," January 28, 2016
- ↑ The Washington Post, "Transcript: Fox Business undercard Republican debate," January 14, 2016
- ↑ CNBC, "Save Social Security from the GOP," October 26, 2015
- ↑ The Des Moines Register, "Don’t cut benefits America’s seniors already paid for," August 12, 2015
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Bloomberg, "Mike Huckabee and the GOP's Small ‘Save Social Security’ Caucus," May 5, 2015
- ↑ Politico, "Mike Huckabee: New welfare changes are ‘trap’," July 17, 2012
- ↑ The Washington Post, "RGA Letter to Bill First," May 19, 2005
- ↑ Talking Points Memo, "Huckabee: Eliminate Government Unions And Slash Entitlements For Poor Public Servants Like Me," February 24, 2011
- ↑ Pew Research Center, "Religion and Politics ’08: Mike Huckabee," November 4, 2008
- ↑ The New York Times, "The Republican Debate on Fox News Channel," October 21, 2007
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