Huckabee rips Ryan and other Republicans for trying to break the trust between government and the people, defends Social Security and Medicare

Mike Huckabee has certainly changed his tune since August of 2012. 

But I don't care what got him to change his opinion about Medicare and Social Security, as long as his message gets out to other republican voters who normally march in lockstep to the party edicts. 

And Democrats, take a hint at how Huckabee frames his defense of our social safety nets, because it kicks ass. Take it, quote him and get the message out. The Weekly Standard:

All it took was a kiss...?

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is making a big break with the Republican party on the issue of entitlement reform. "I don't know why Republicans want to insult Americans by pretending they don't understand what their Social Security program and Medicare program is," Huckabee said in response to a question about Christie's proposal to gradually raise the retirement age and implement a means test. 

Huckabee said: "Not just no, it's you-know-what no ... what we are really embracing at that point is we are embracing a government that lied to its people--that took money from its people under one pretense and then took it away at the time when they started wanting to actually get what they have paid for all these years."

Huckabee also said he wouldn't sign congressman Paul Ryan's plan to reform Medicare for Americans who are 55 years old and younger ... "that I'd be paying in and suddenly you're telling me they're going to be changing the rules for you here."

Paul Ryan and other advocates of Medicare reform have argued government will ratchet up medical rationing of care for Medicare recipients, but Huckabee dismissed such concerns, saying that "all medical care is rationed."

Huckabee said Republican proposals to reform entitlements are "disastrous, not only politically but I think they be disastrous in terms of further breaking the trust between the government and its people."

Huckabee said this morning that the only entitlement reforms he would support would be giving retirees the option to take a lump-sum cash payment upon retirement and changing the existing programs for people who are just now entering the workforce.