Charlie Kirk calls for cuts to Social Security: “I'm not a fan of retirement. I don't think retirement is biblical."
Kirk: “I'm willing to strike a deal so that people in their twenties are going to get next to nothing for future Social Security if it means we can balance the budget”
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From the September 19, 2023, edition of Salem Media Group's The Charlie Kirk Show
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Look, for current beneficiaries, none of – none of your obligations should be touched. If you're receiving Social Security, if you're receiving Medicare, if you look at the composition of the federal proposed budget, a lot of it though – and I don't like this word entitlement. I don't like that. I'll be honest. If you pay into Social Security, that's not an entitlement. You earned that.
Now, I do think you should be able to opt out of Social Security payments. I really do. You should be able to say no, I don't want it in the future. I don't want it now. I can invest it far more dutifully than with the federal government. And just so you know, the federal government's not putting your Social Security payments in some sort of a lockbox. They take your Social Security payments via FICA for 20, 25, 30, 35 year-olds and then they just bring it through and they say, ok, we'll pay you later, we'll pay you later. We'll pay you later. And so, the proportion of retirees to people paying used to be something like 20 to 1, 30 to 1. Now it's like 2.5 to 1.
So in the future, and I'm talking about my generation, I – I'm 29 years old. I'm willing to say, you know what, I'm willing to strike a deal so that people in their twenties are going to get next to nothing for future Social Security if it means we can balance the budget.
Now, I totally understand, if I were to say that about people in their fifties right now, there would be a revolt at our studio. Of all the issues that if I were to even touch, even allude to saying that a 1% adjustment of Social Security or Medicare, it would be a riot.
I get it, because a lot of people depend on it, and a lot of people, you know, live on it, and they expect it, and look, you have to understand, you work many decades to pay into it and you’re made a promise and the government says, oh, you know, not so fast. I will say there's a lot of lying around the Social Security or Medicare issue. A lot of lying. Where it is used as a political football.
Now, I will say that for future retirees, people under the age of 45, we should absolutely raise the retirement age. I'm going to say something very provocative. I'm not a fan of retirement. I don't think retirement is biblical. I think that if you retire, you should always be doing something not to say that you have to, you can't slow down, but you should be helping people, part-time work. You should be helping with the grandkids, volunteering. I do not like the over-emphasis on a retirement-based society. I don't. I think there is so much talent that is not being used.
In fact, I talk to senior citizens. They say, Charlie, after I officially retired, I went back and I was a part-time substitute teacher, counselor at the local church. And so, I challenge this idea of retirement altogether. People are living longer. Are they doing more with their seventies or eighties? Some, yes. Some, not so much. But you say Charlie, I'm just gonna retire and I'm just gonna go golf. I think, what a waste of the gifts that God has given you. What a waste of the wisdom that you have been given just to – kind of just watch TV and to golf. No, there are young people that need you as a mentor. You know, how many Turning Point USA chapters would be blessed by people in their sixties, seventies, and eighties to mentor them, to pour into them, to give them advice?
So, we take money from people who need it the most, young families in their twenties and thirties, and give it to those who need it the least.