Gov. Rick Perry stopped off in the Alamo City on Tuesday for a bite of barbecue and a bit of promotion for his new book — and called for completely repealing President Barack Obama's health care legislation while he was at it. In his 12-minute speech at Augie's Barbed Wire Smokehouse Bar-B-Que near Brackenridge Park, Perry took on the federal government, from health care reform to Social Security. Perry pushed for a repeal of Obama's health care legislation “in its entirety.”
“You can't go through this piece by piece. You need to repeal it in its entirety,” he said. “Then let's have them start anew from the premise that the states can better handle these questions.”
Perry criticized President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and an early 20th- century “progressive era” movement that “gave the federal government access to our wallets via taxation.”
Calling the New Deal “a glut of federal programs,” Perry said the creation of the Social Security system did very little to end the Great Depression.
“Unfortunately, the New Deal has essentially become the third rail of American politics that indiscriminately kills the political careers of any leader bold enough to criticize it or any program it created,” he said.
In a post-speech news conference, Perry further attacked Social Security — as he did in his book “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington” — and said he did so to create a “national dialogue.”
“I want people to be afraid not to talk about that Social Security is bankrupt and is a Ponzi scheme and if you've got a young 20-something-year- old, they know for a fact that they're not ever going to see that,” he said. “So let's fix it.”
Perry's speech, in which he also railed against government intrusion into citizens' lives, focused largely on national issues. He's been on a whirlwind tour since winning an unprecedented third term as governor, under the auspices of promoting his anti-Washington book — making appearances on CNN, Fox News and Comedy Central's “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
Perry is consistently asked if he's ramping up for a run for president. He denies it.
