Trump: Dems ‘Doing Nothing With Social Security’ — Will ‘Do Everything Within My Power Not to Touch’ It

Thursday at the CNN Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump said Democrats would never allow anything to change the status quo with Social Security, therefore reform would be difficult.

However, he vowed to not touch the entitlement and strive to get ride of “waste, fraud and abuse.”

Partial transcript as follows:

BASH: Mr. Trump, you don’t want to raise the retirement age or cut benefits unless adjustments are made, Social Security is projected to run out of money within 20 years. So specifically, what would you do to stop that from happening?

TRUMP: First of all, I want you to understand the Democrats, and I’ve watched them very intensely, even though it’s a very, very boring thing to watch, that the Democrats are doing nothing with Social Security. They are leaving it the way it is. They want to increase it. They want to actually give more. And that’s what we’re up against. Whether we like it or not, that’s what we’re up against. I’ll do everything within my power not to touch Social Security, to leave it the way it is, to make this country rich again, bring back our jobs, get rid of deficits, get rid of waste, fraud and abuse, which is rampant in this country. Rampant, totally rampant. And it’s my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is. You have 22 years, you have a long time to go. It’s not long in terms of what we’re talking about, but it’s still a long time to go. And I want to leave Social Security as is. I want to make our country rich again so we can afford it. I want to bring back our jobs. I want to do things that will make us — that will bring back the GDP. As an example, GDP was 0 essentially for the last two quarters . If that ever happened in China you would have had a depression like nobody has ever seen. They go down to 7%, 8% and it’s a national tragedy. We’re at zero. We’ve lost our jobs. We’ve lost everything. We’re losing everything. Our jobs are gone. Our businesses are being taken out of the country. I want to make America great again and leave Social Security as is. We’re going to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse and bring back business.

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