To the Editor:

At this week’s Republican presidential debate, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas was given the opportunity to repudiate his long-held view of Social Security as “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.” But instead, as you report, he “doubled down,” once again calling Social Security a “monstrous lie” (“Perry and Romney Joust Over Direction of G.O.P.,” front page, Sept. 8).

As President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in 1954: “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt [and] a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Governor Perry is completely out of touch with the vast majority of the American people, who recognize Social Security’s vital importance in providing economic security when wages are lost as a result of death, disability or old age. If Mr. Perry continues to defend those views, we predict, to quote John Wayne in “True Grit,” “You do it and it’ll be the biggest mistake you ever made, you Texas brushpopper!”

NANCY ALTMAN

ERIC KINGSON

Co-chairmen, Strengthen Social Security Campaign

Bethesda, Md., Sept. 9, 2011