Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said Friday that the national retirement age needs to be raised “in relatively short order.”
“I think we need to raise the retirement age, not for the people that already nearing —receiving Social Security that are already on it [sic], but raise it gradually over a long period of time for people that are just entering the system,” Bush said Friday during a speech in New Hampshire.
Bush’s comments on Friday follow New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) laying out a detailed proposal for cutting Social Security spending and raising the retirement age from 67 to 69. Bush didn’t specify what he would like to raise the retirement age to during his speech on Friday.
“And I think we need to do that in relatively short order. And social security can be sustained just as it was in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan, Tip O’Neill, Dan Rostenkowski I guess was probably in it, Bob Packwood —this group of people very conservative, very liberal, and in between— forged consensus on how to sustain Social Security over the long haul,” Bush continued.
The former Florida governor’s comments were more specific than a statement provided to TPM by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, another Republican governor who has taken steps toward running for president in 2016, which said that he also wants to see “significant reforms” to entitlement programs.
Bush, like Christie, also signaled that he would like to see changes to the Social Security Disability Trust Fund. In Christie’s plan he suggested support for House Republicans’ move to try and leverage changes to the program by blocking a routine funds transfer between the disability fund and retirement fund. Bush, in his speech, that changes needed to the disability trust fund and Medicare “which is, are going to cause big, big contingent liabilities.”
“And there the challenge is a lot harder because the underlying healthcare system has to be reformed,” Bush said. “But it, too, can be reformed.”
Watch Bush below:
