Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he was an “emphatic advocate” of a balanced budget amendment, and expressed support for means testing Social Security and raising the retirement age on Monday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.
“I think the penny plan has an awful lot of force to it, and I am an emphatic advocate of a Balanced Budget Amendment” Cruz stated.
Cruz added, “you’re going to be hard pressed to come up with a cost-cutting program that I’m not going to support. I do think the military, we need to look at the growing national security threats, and we need to make sure we take care of the men and women in the military and we provide what we need to protect this nation. And also if you look at the budget, you cannot bring the budget into control without taking on entitlement reform. Two-thirds of the federal budget is entitlements. So, if you don’t talk about entitlements, you can’t do it.”
Cruz expressed support for means testing Social Security and raising the retirement age, but he clarified that he was talking about future generations and that “any Social Security reform that you do, for those people who are seniors, for those people who are near retirement, we need to honor the commitments we’ve made to them.”
Cruz later stated that he believed he could accomplish a balanced budget without tax increases, and that while he supports the Fair Tax, achieving one would take time and that he supports a flat tax as a middle ground.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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