Save Social Security from the GOP

If you want empty rhetoric and business as usual, there are many Republicans to choose from. But I believe it's time we burn the corrupt Washington political machine to the ground and rebuild America before it's too late!

Some Republican presidential candidates want to abolish Medicare, slash Social Security and tell American seniors to "get over it" when it comes to cutting their benefits. They want to rob seniors of their benefits and give them a worthless healthcare voucher instead. Let me be clear: raising the retirement age and slashing Medicare benefits for seniors who have been working for decades is theft! We have enough muggers in the streets without the government becoming one!

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Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

How can Washington confiscate money from our paycheck for 50 years and then refuse to keep its promise to seniors? Social Security and Medicare aren't optional, they are mandatory programs. Social Security and Medicare aren't welfare, they are EARNED benefits. I cannot believe that GOP presidential candidates and leaders in Congress think we should balance the federal budget on the backs of America's seniors.

I have a better plan: Let's keep our promise to seniors and repeal Obamacare. Sadly, many Republican presidential candidates are currently implementing Obamacare in their state. It's absolute hypocrisy to create this disastrous new welfare program and then tell seniors they need to sacrifice their hard-earned benefits to the greedy gods in Washington.

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In addition, so many cheats are exploiting the Social Security program, and more than 20 percent of Medicare spending is waste, fraud and abuse. Instead of stabbing seniors in the back, Washington needs to tackle these problems first.

Many Republicans also talk tough on taxes. Yet nearly all the GOP presidential candidates support tax-reform plans that "tinker" with the tax code and preserve the IRS. "Tinkering" our broken system with new tax credits, incentives, deductions, loopholes, and lower rates is NOT reform — it's lipstick on a pig. I am the ONLY presidential candidate with a real plan to permanently abolish the IRS and kill the tax code.

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Under my FairTax, our 75,000-page tax code and its enforcement agency, the IRS, is burned to the ground. The FairTax completely eliminates all taxes on wages and income. In its place, it would establish a fair, flat, family-friendly, and finite national sales tax. It brings trillions of dollars in offshore investment and manufacturing back to the United States — creating millions of good jobs. It's also the only plan that guarantees drug dealers, criminals and illegal immigrants pay their fair share.

On trade, Washington has been a disaster. We cannot create good jobs for Americans by entering into unbalanced trade deals that forego congressional scrutiny and looking the other way as the law is ignored so we can import low wage labor, undercut American workers, and drive wages lower than the Dead Sea.

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I am opposed to bad trade deals that Republicans have embraced over the years, especially Obama's most recent Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. I wouldn't trust Obama to buy a car off Craigslist, yet many GOP candidates think he can be trusted to negotiate a trade deal that impacts 40 percent of our economy. This is crazy.

Washington has plenty of con men, liars and pretenders, and sadly, some of them are Republicans. It's political theater that passes for leadership. I'm running for president to solve problems and empower Americans who've been getting punched in the gut. It's time we make Washington work for the people again.

Commentary by Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a 2016 Republican candidate for president of the United States. Follow him on Twitter @GovMikeHuckabee.

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