taxes. they are paying half that. their employer pays the other half of their social security and medicare tax contributions to funding those programs. now, no doubt some of the campaign staff for the other republican candidates are learning right now for the first time as they watch this program that herman cain s plan includes abolishing social security and medicare. not just abolishing the payroll taxes that fund both of those programs, but abolishing the programs, themselves. now that they know that, you can expect mitt romney and other republican candidates who have attacked rick perry for calling social security a ponzi scheme to start to point out that the new front-runner, herman cain, is far more of a threat to social security than any of the other republican candidates. herman and is the republican candidate who has declared in writing, in his 9-9-9 plan that
ed henry, live at the white house with more on that. ed, what does the memo say exactly? good morning, gregg. it s all about the theme that we ve been hearing from campaign officials respect leading up to this, about what they want 2012 to be, and they want it to be a choice, they want it to be a broader choice than just about jobs, because obviously the unemployment situation with the president is pretty stark right now, and so this memo lays out, it basically goes after governor rick perry of texas, for example, for calling social security a ponzi scheme, it goes after former governor mitt romney as well on social security, saying he s previously come out for privatizing social security, and then this memo makes this broader indictment of the republican field, it says, quote, the campaign to win the republican nomination has become a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the tea party. they would return to polices that have been tried before and done nothing to improve economic s
10,000 gallons. that s the size of a good sized back yard swimming pool. so obviously, this thing is fully involved, they have every fire department they can get trying to pump water on this thing. but right now, it is just black clouds, boiling into the sky over waxahachie, texas, the magablend facility is very much on fire. we ll keep you posted. no injuries to report just yet, but we don t obviously, it s early in the going on this thing. we ll get more information to you as quickly as we can. republican presidential candidate rick perry has repeatedly called social security a ponzi scheme. the texas governor is saying that people ought to control their own retirement money instead. but perry doesn t have to look far to see how a private i d social security plan might work. kris gutierrez live from dallas with that. back in the early 80s
republican who can beat barack obama. and i think when you look at the florida primary, which is a big, important primary. it was four years ago, it will be very important in the general election, the single most important influence on that is the outcome of the new hampshire primary and the south carolina primary. and you saw polls today in new hampshire that show mitt romney gaining in his lead. and you show rick perry falling there. so i think the numbers in florida, lawrence, are an indication of what we re seeing at the national level, and we ll see in the debates going forward how rick perry continues to stack up. but for sure this is going to become an increasingly big part of mitt romney s campaign so long as we see numbers like that. does rick perry have to find a way to back off, to distance himself from his past statements on social security? i think those statements on social security, there s a strong case to be made that they render him unelectable.
and i think there s a strong case to be made that his statements on social security are enormously problematic in a republican primary. if you look at the migration into south carolina, the coastal areas, and horry county among northeastern retirees, and obviously you look at the retiree population in the state of florida, many of whom will be voting and participating in a republican primary, a debate about social security as opposed to the republican candidate going and being able to talk about economic growth, expanding the economy, keeping the focus on the president s economic reco record, republicans clearly want it to be the latter, not the former. so i think the social security issue is going to be a defining issue not just in our general election if rick perry were the nominee but i think it would be a big issue in the primary election. ? let s bring in editorial director for aol, huffington