Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Thursday on “Your World” that she helped balance the budget as South Carolina’s governor and could do it again as president.
NIKKI HALEY: Look, I think Biden is the real socialist president. He likes to spend other people’s money. His answer to everything is to raise taxes. And I think we have to be realistic. We are $31 trillion in debt. I think we borrow money to pay the interest. This is not sustainable. The problem is that Washington, DC has a spending problem, and we need to put them on a diet and end it. I did it in South Carolina. We have to do this for the country.
The first thing Biden should do is say, “We’re going to return $500 billion of unused COVID money.” The second thing he should have said was, instead of IRS agents going after innocent Americans, go back and follow the $100 billion in COVID fraud that happened on the way. We need to make sure that we get together with Republicans and Democrats because they both opened earmarks. This is not the time for them to spend $2 billion on counties that don’t have and don’t have government structures.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Cuyahoga Community College Metropolitan Campus, Thursday, May 27, 2021, in Cleveland. ((AP Photo/Evan Vucci))
So if we are talking about entitlement reform, the first thing we will do is, look, I have parents in their 80s. We will take care of them. I don’t want anyone to hurt the elderly or anyone getting ready to retire. But I have kids in their 20s, those are the ones who have to go and know that things are going to change. So what you’ll do is for those in their 20s coming into the system, we’ll change the retirement age to match life expectancy.
The second thing we’re going to do is we’re going to limit benefits for the rich. Then you go further instead rising cost of living make increases based on inflation. That’s something Republicans and Democrats will agree on. And on top of that, expand the Medicare Advantage plan so we can have more competition, and we can lower costs. That’s what entitlement reform will look like. That’s how you make it sustainable. And that’s also how you devalue what we see today.
You keep your promises to the ones we made, promises. Investors should keep what they have. We should not in any way endanger those who are already hoping for something. It’s about the new group coming in.
The newcomers. Those in their twenties will enter. You go to them and say the game has changed. We will do it completely differently. That’s how you go and focus on it. We need to start doing things like that. But more than that, we have to look at the fact that there is a spending problem in DC and the Republicans and Democrats have done it to us, Neil. Don’t forget that when it all started, with the Republicans, they passed a $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus package 419-6 in the House and 96 to 0 in the Senate that expanded welfare. Now we have 90 million people on Medicaid. You have 42 million people on food stamps. We must be taking people from welfare to work.
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We shouldn’t be paying people to sit on the couch and add to welfare lists. It is under the watch of the Republicans. They opened the earmarks again. Why are we spending on pork projects if one in six Americans can’t pay their utility bill? We should stop borrowing. We no unlimited credit cards in our households or in our businesses. Why do we let that happen? And we must make sure they understand that you should not pass a spending bill that does not return us to pre-COVID levels. It would be cruel. It will require a president who will appeal to Republicans and Democrats. I did that as governor. I will do it again as president.