Damn right.

OTTUMWA, Iowa — Riding high in the polls, Gov. Rick Perry rode into Iowa on Saturday with tough talk on President Barack Obama and a declaration that Social Security is not only a Ponzi scheme but a “monstrous lie” for younger people.

“If you’re for the status quo in America, I’m not your guy,” Perry told an overflow crowd eager to see the presidential candidate at The Vine Coffeehouse.

Asked by a woman in the crowd about Social Security being viewed as an entitlement program, Perry reiterated the suggestion in his anti-Washington book “Fed Up!” that the program amounts to a Ponzi scheme.

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today (and) the current program is going to be there for them is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Later, in Des Moines, when a reporter asked about the suggestion his campaign was backing off some positions in the staunch states-rights book, Perry said, “I haven’t backed off anything in my book. So read the book again and get it right.”

He told the Ottumwa crowd that for people who are drawing Social Security or “like me” near eligibility, he wasn’t proposing a change in the program. But he said there should be a national conversation about potential changes for others, including raising the age of eligibility and establishing a threshold based on a person’s means.

“Does Warren Buffett need to get Social Security? Maybe not,” he said.

On foreign policy, Perry was asked about Israel and cited a statement by Obama that Israel’s borders with a Palestinian state should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps — a position Perry called “throwing Israel under the bus.”

“I’m going to stand with Israel,” he said.

Asked whether he’d consider pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Perry said there are “a lot of different ways to deal with Iran,” including diplomatically and financially, But he added, “I’m never going to take off the table our ability to have a military solution to a country like Iran.”