pawlenty“The federal government is running a Ponzi scheme,” Gov. Pawlenty told a New Hampshire radio audience Wednesday, and if pending reforms are enacted, federal health care programs are destined for bankruptcy.

Pawlenty was interviewed by phone on WGIR-AM ahead of an in-person appearance in the state Wednesday evening to raise money for New Hampshire Republicans.

Asked about government spending under President Obama, Pawlenty said, “It really makes me angry. … The federal government is running a Ponzi scheme. … They can’t pay their bills. It saddens me. … That’s not the kind of America I want to live in.”

(It is, however, the kind of Minnesota Pawlenty lives in. Minnesota finance officials are preparing to take out short-term loans for the first time in years to pay the state’s bills.)

Asked about the costs of health care reform, Pawlenty said, “This is one of the biggest bait-and-switch tactics in modern political history.”

Access isn’t the issue, he asserted: “For most people … the main issue isn’t expanding access to a broken system. It’s containing costs and making it more affordable.”

“The federal government has gone on a pathway to bankruptcy in just about every entitlement program it’s running. … Now they’re asking to have another one. And I just don’t think we should give it to them.”

“The pathway to reform,” Pawlenty said, involves giving individuals good health-care information and “financial incentives to use the system wisely and let the markets work.

“We’ve done that in ways, and it works.”

Is this the first of many visits to New Hampshire for a Minnesota governor with presidential ambitions? “We’ll see,” said T-Paw.