Chris Christie waves to the crowd on Thursday at the Republican debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

Huckabee’s provocative comment concluded a wonkish back-and-forth between him and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about entitlement reform.

Christie defended his plan to raise the retirement age and change benefits for Social Security and Medicare, but Huckabee stressed that Uncle Sam was to blame.

Huckabee responded that he thought it was dishonest to cut benefits for Americans, who have been paying into the program all their life through no choice of their own. “The lying and the stealing has already occurred”, Christie said.

“The fair tax transforms the process by which we fund by social security and Medicare… consumption is paid by everybody, including illegal, prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers”, Huckabee said before the bell rung.

He suggested that part of the problem with Social Security’s finances is the lack of jobs and wages for middle-class and poor people, while people “at the top”, most of whose incomes come from dividends and capital gains and are above the Social Security payroll tax cap, have seen their prospects improve.