Santorum blames 'abortion culture' for problems with Social Security
(CNN) - Potential 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the "abortion culture" in America is to blame for the failing Social Security system.
In an interview with WEZS Radio in Laconia, New Hampshire, Tuesday, the former Republican Pennsylvania senator said abortion rates are influencing the number of children born in the United States and there are therefore not enough children to support the program long-term.
"The Social Security system in my opinion is a flawed design, period. But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends," Santorum said. "A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."
Santorum, an outspoken opponent of abortion, made the comments in response to a caller who said abortion rates are to blame for the problems with Social Security and Medicare.
"We have seven children so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system," Santorum said. "I want children to be living in America and contributing. America's greatest resource is our people and we're denying America what it needs, which is more Americans."
Santorum was in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state Tuesday to meet with voters and headline a GOP dinner in Concord.
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Santorum is assuming that there would be well-educated, self supporting individuals with good jobs to add to Social Security. How many would actually be uneducated, unemployed living like so many from one parent homes with no father figure supporting them? Remember - "Children Learn What They Live"! Nice try, Santorum. Tell us where all the jobs would be if we had more people looking for work?
BETTER IDEA WOULD BE TO LIMIT THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS AN INDIVIDUAL CAN HAVE PAID FOR BY THE GOVERNMENT!
BONEHEAD ALERT!!
The failing of Social Security is due to all of the IOUs that currently reside in its accounts. To add, if you look at the people that get abortions, they are predominately not of the "contribution" populace anyway, so there is any reason to think their offspring would do more than require more "social" help throughout their lives, taking away further from those that actually had a hand in building this country. This guy is wacko. Palen in drag.
I always wondered if, in my lifetime, I might get to hear the absolute stupidest thing ever said. And here it is.
This guy is truly an idiot. Abortion is the cause of the social security deficit problem... really Rick??? Its not the fact that we have been borrowing from the funding for it for the last 3 decades. The fact that the only time we actually had a balanced budget that rather than shift the excess funds (little that there were) in to the social securtiy trust fund the president instead gave everyone in America a $300 dollar refund? If you spend more than you make consistently, you run out of money... that has nothing to do with abortion you moron.
Did he really say that? He won't be Prez–not even anyone's Vice.
Really? And this guy is a presidential candidate??? Is this for real????
The stupidity of this is shocking. Absolutely shocking.
So abortion being legal, the solution is to allow more immigration, no? Immigrants from certain demographic groups have larger families. Just open the borders and we'll have all the kids we need to fund social security? Now you're really thinking Santorum. ... What, you've identified a problem but you're not for the obvious solution?
What a totally idiotic thing to say! The last thing we need is billions more people on the planet fighting for dwindling resources. The anti-abortion gig is just a way to put women in their place-barefoot and pregnant. The concern for life is totally fake. These are the same people who can't get enough guns on the streets, love going to war and killing people, want to strip people who need it of help via social programs, healthcare, etc. Republicans are total psychopaths.
As usual Santorum is an idiot. Like Glen Beck he makes connections between events that don't exist and claims that his unfounded connections have a cause and effect relationship that is detrimental to our country. He just as easily could have said that if we had more abortions the unemployment rate would be lower. So obviously, the abortion rate should be higher. Why isn't he pushing for more abortions especially since many of these children would be born into poor families. They won't be well educated and will be a drag on our economy. My recommendation for Santorum is to stop trying to justify your beliefs and find some real solutions for real people.
"A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."
This is a miss print right?
This guy cannot be serious...
Wow. Just wow. It's really getting to be loony season again.
These republicans know their base is ignorant and believe anything they say. God help us.
What a simplistic and ignorant thought process. So if every baby born was going to be a productive, contributing citizen to society? The opposite would also be true, just cause you can have a baby, doesn't mean you should Mr Santorum.
Logically faulty, as always, They could only do that if they had JOBS – the Republicans do all they can do squash for regular people.
He also fails to mention the tax resources a burgeoning population of unemployed or underemployed would negate any fica increases. And then they would have to have even more kids to pay for theirs until our population is greater than Chinas? assuming there were JOBS for them.
Since FICA taxes on the middle class have been the Republican solution to compensate for the tax windfalls given to their fatcat donors, and then they use it's surplus to fund their deficits, the honest solution is to take out of the general budget any shortfalls in fica revenue in the first places.
That or, like you know, job growth with decent wages would do it too.
Or Santorum can borrow the money from his wealthy fatcats and pay back me and the millions of others he intends to rob, the present value of our contributions and I'll gladly call it a day.
WTF??? We need more children??? Yes I get the math behind what he is trying to say but WTF?? Let's all have more children as if the world isn't overpopulated already. And where does he get his poorly articulated "A third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion." Is he really trying to say 1/3 of all pregnancies end in abortion? Between this guy, Donald, Sarah and crazy lady from Minn. I think the republican party is going to implode.
OMG, this guy must also believe Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. Why can't these repugs learn what compound interest is and maybe, in their little minds, think about the surplus Social Security posted during the Clinton years? Uh, that is before the ill-advised Iraq War and Afghanistan debacles ...
The vast majority of abortions are coming from the poorest and least likely to provide proper parenting segments in America. So yes, let's go ahead and put a bunch of unwanted and uneducated children out in the streets to save our flawed Social Security system. Genius idea. What the hell is this guy talking about?
Okay, so he's admitting SS is a Ponzi/pyramid scheme.
It's not sustainable as it is, and it's questionable why it has this dual status as social welfare vs. forced retirement savings. Most younger people don't expect to get much back, so let's save some serious money here and raise the retirement age a little and add some means testing. If we can save a little in these programs (SS, Medicare/Medicaid) that make up a big portion of the budget it will let us invest better in the many programs that make up 'discretionary' spending that yield more long term gains (education, anyone?).
Oh goodness, is he kidding? What high-paying jobs would those people be taking to pay their share into Social Security? Those children would have been unwanted, and potentially responsible for dragging their poor teen mothers onto the welfare rolls. There is a competing theory that the drop in the overall crime rate in the country is due to legalized abortion, since millions of unwanted children are not being born into desperate lives that lead them to crime to support themselves.
Has he not noticed that we have a jobs problem? Unemployment is at 10 percent. More people, more unemployed people. Unemployed people do not contribute to social security.
Little Ricky in the house! Little Ricky is an abortion. Cut the cord.
Demographic transition of a society from a youthful and rapidly growing population to one where women have more rights, more education and employment opportunities, and the resulting decrease in birth rates is not an American phenomenon. America is actually behind the transition curve in relation to some other western countries. Mr. Santorum shows the thinness of his knowledge on this, and is hoping that the American public is no smarter than him. He would benefit from a little research and open-mindedness on the topic.
It makes me want to fire up a The Meaning of Life and sing along with Michael Palin to the "every sperm is sacred song".
In other words, everybody get out there and have sex with no contraception...hear that all you teenagers, get patriotic make babies. Ban the Pill, increase the tax exemption on kids, government handouts if you have over 8 kids, that'll solve the Social Security problem....yep you betcha!