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The New Mexico Independent going forward

By | 11.16.11

I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…

EIB hears more anti-cap-and-trade testimony

Mesa Verde 80
By | 11.10.11

While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…

New Mexico’s largest university low in popularity

jobs-80
By | 11.10.11

Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Photo: Mary Tuma
Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Photo: Mary Tuma

Rick Perry distances himself from his recent book on Social Security

By | 08.22.11 | 11:13 am

In his book “Fed Up!,” Rick Perry called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and said it was unconstitutional, but now that he’s got his eye on the White House, Perry and his campaign are distancing from those statements.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Perry’s communications director, Ray Sullivan, had “never heard” of Perry’s views on Social Security and said that the book, which was released last November, was written “as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto.” Perry has been telling audiences in Iowa and New Hampshire to read the book.

In the book, he calls Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” that was enacted by FDR “at the expense of respect for the Constitution and limited government.”

He despises the New Deal, noting that the “era represents the second big step in the march of socialism and was the key to releasing the remaining constraints on the national government’s power grab in American history … FDR tried to change the way that citizens interacted with their government.”

The Supreme Court has ruled the program constitutional, and Perry now says he wants benefits for current beneficiaries and those about to retire “strongly protected,” and he said his aim is to make seek a program that is “fiscally responsible and actuarially sound.”

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