Jan. 24 Republican debate transcript

Russert: Governor Huckabee, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, said very straightforward, if entitlement spending continues as the baby boomers retire from 40 million to 80 million on Social Security and Medicare, we'll have to raise taxes by a third or cut all other programs other than Medicare and Social Security by half. That is his testimony.

What will you do specifically to save Social Security?

Huckabee: I'm going to address that, but I want to first comment on Mitt's decision on the -- putting an extraordinary amount of money in the campaign.

First of all, let me say, you've got five exceptional sons I know you're very proud of. And you said you want them to inherit a great country. And I have a solution, Mitt, that I think will work.

If the country will elect me president, they'll inherit a great president and your boys will still get your money, too. And I think that would be a great answer. So I want to offer that as a solution tonight for inheritance.

On the Social Security question, one of the reasons that we're in trouble is we have a smaller group of people paying into the Social Security system. Fewer wage earners.

More Americans getting their wealth from dividends and from investments. So you have a shrinking supply. You have 10,000 baby boomers a day getting into the system.

One of the reasons I'm a strong supporter of the fair tax is that you suddenly have a different funding stream for Social Security. It comes out of the general fund. So you now have a more reliable, a more stable, and a much broader funding system that will supply Social Security.

Russert: But if you don't have a fair tax, which is highly unlikely...

Huckabee: Well, you know, everybody keeps talking about how unlikely it is.

Russert: But...

Huckabee: It was unlikely that we'd go to the moon.

Russert: All right. But...

Huckabee: It was unlikely that we would have the Manhattan Project.

Russert: But specifically, what would you do...

Huckabee: Being president -- no, Tim, I just want to say, everybody talks about how unlikely these things are. That's what's wrong in America.

We're always talking about what we can't do. We need to be talking about what we can do, whether it's energy independence, whether it's passing a tax system that will work.

And I do believe when you have an economy that brings that $12 trillion that's parked offshore, bring it back to this country, then you have a true economic stimulus -- more people going back to work in America, people making wages. And that's where -- that's where we start seeing the passing to pay for Social Security.

Russert: Governor Romney, you are a big fan of Ronald Reagan. Will you do for Social Security what Ronald Reagan did in 1983?

Romney: I'm not going to raise taxes. What I'm going to do is...

Russert: Well, Ronald Reagan raised the payroll tax. He also raised the retirement age and he saved Social Security, with Alan Greenspan and Tip O'Neill and Bob Dole and Pat Moynihan.

Would you do what Ronald Reagan did?

Romney: No. I don't want to raise taxes. I've pointed out that of the four ways to solve the shortfall in Social Security, the worst idea is to raise taxes on the American people, because it has a double whammy.

Not only are you taking money away from their pocketbooks, you're also slowing down the economy. You slow down the economy, more people lose work. More people lose work, of course, you're having a lot of folks that really have their lives turned upside down.

So raising taxes is just something you don't want to do.

There are three other ways that you can solve the problem of Social Security and they're ways that have been brought forward by a number of Republicans over the years.

We're going to have to sit down with the Democrats and say, "Let's have a compromise on these three elements that could get us to bring Social Security into economic balance."

What are they? Well, number one, you can have personal accounts where people can invest in something that does better than government bonds, with some portion of their Social Security. Number two, you can say we're going to have the initial benefit calculation for wealthier Americans calculated based on the consumer price index rather than the wage index. That saves almost two-thirds of the shortfall.

And, number three, you can change the retirement age. You can push it out a little bit.

And so those are the three arithmetic things you can do. There's going to have to be an agreement reached, Republicans and Democrats. Senator Judd Gregg has introduced legislation cosponsored by Democrats, saying put an equal number of Republicans and Democrats in a committee, have them work together, come up with a compromise, bring it forward, require a 60 percent vote to get the job done, and those are the three that I think are the ones that have to be pursued for us to solve the issue of Social Security.

But don't forget, let's not scare anybody listening in who's on Social Security or near Social Security. It's not going to change the current program. It's not going to change for anybody who's already in retirement or near retirement. But we have to be honest to the people coming along, the program is going to have to change for 20- and 30- and 40-year-olds.