9 crazy things Rick Perry Believes
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce his bid to seek the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday. It will be Perry’s second attempt to secure a home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and Perry showed commendable candor in the lead-up to his 2012 bid regarding his unorthodox views about the Constitution. Most politicians who hope to win a national election, for example, would not openly admit that they believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional.
Yet Perry was remarkably honest about his belief that federal programs that millions of American depend upon for their health and livelihood somehow violate America’s founding principles. In 2010, he published a book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington, laying out his narrow understanding of the Constitution in considerable detail. He also gave numerous speeches and made multiple television appearances touting his belief that much of the last century of American history was a constitutional error.
Here are some of Perry’s more surprising beliefs:
1) Social Security And Medicare Are Unconstitutional
The Constitution permits the federal government to “lay and collect taxes” and to use the funds raised by these taxes to “pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” This provision lays out the constitutional basis for federal spending programs such as Social Security, Medicare and numerous other such programs that seek to advance the general welfare.
Perry, however, believes these programs are unconstitutional. “I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term ‘general welfare’ in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care,” Perry told the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano in 2011.
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http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/06/04/3665988/9-completely-bonkers-things-newest-gop-presidental-candidate-believes-constitution/
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