The speech ended 20 minutes ago and nobody's started a topic yet? Shocking! There wasn't too much in there I wasn't expecting, and as always far too many standing ovations for my taste. Someone should really ban those. They add nothing to the speech, but I'm drifting off topic. Thoughts? Ideas about which proposal will be this years version of "We need to explore Mars!" idea that went nowhere?

His stuff about Social Security was where his idealism really shone through. Who knows? Maybe Congress will listen to him.

I tell you what, though. Bush's speechwriters know what they're doing. He didn't say much about the controversial things, for good or for bad.

Why do I suddenly feel like buying a really crappy used car?

Must wash.... Smarmy won't come offf....

Lies, Orwellian weasel words, open calls for class warfare, more lies, double talk, invocation of the irrelevant virtues of his policy victims; same old, same old. Akin to the inauguration speech which his own spokesmen were denying on the same day he delivered it; there's nothing here to take hope from unless you're on the side of the devils. Frankly; there wasn't a single sentence that meant something in policy terms, was true, and was praiseworthy in the entire speech...

After the speech, and NPR commentator noted that in his talk about social security he was targeting the younger demographic who thinks that nothing will be left for them when they retire. As I was listening to the speech, I was struck that he wasn't talking to me at all. He was talking to people whose Social Security won't change because of this, and to people who want to make to work "for their children". He even had a line about everybody's grey hair. Hey man, I vote, and I don't have more grey hairs than I did when I was 7. My mother is even below his "nothing will change if you're 55 or over" bright line.

Not to say that the democratic rebuttal was any better. My fiance was still saying rude remarks about the speech-making on the radio, to which I responded "that's the democrats, you know" and he said "Oh. It sounds exactly the same."

Some cited rebuttals to various points in the speech; for your amusement.

now i make appologies for not having any hard datum on what i am about to put forward but here it is

1, i knew when i was still in grade school that social security wasnt gonna be there when i needed it, it was gonna die out with the baby boomers and hippie generation before me, why, because theres to many of them and not enough people my age paying social security to keep them afloat....

2. the evidence was all there in my school books for anyone who could read between the lines well enough, social security was started as a stop gap measure in the thirties, and the layout for it hasnt been changed since then

3. the democrats that i heard, ( and i note that i didnt listen to many cause the ones that i heard were all spouting the same line.) are the ones who think that if they bury their head in the sand everything will come out ok in the end and nothing will hapen that they cant fix

Well, as far as Social Security goes, Bush makes two assumptions:

1. The economy will be weak enough (say 2% annual growth per year) that there will not be enough payroll taxes to sustain social security.

2. The economy will grow robustly enough to return 5-6% on private accounts.

Therefore, social security will be saved by private accounts.

However:

1. If the economy doesn't grow fast enough to sustain payroll taxes to cover social security, there will not be growth of 5-6% in private accounts. Therefore private accounts won't make up the difference.

2. If the economy grows fast enough to generate 5-6% returns on private accounts, payroll taxes will increase more than enough to keep social security solvent.

Bush makes two different assumptions, one for each philosophical principal he espouses. They contradict each other, but that problem never fails to deter a true believer.

Strictly speaking, SS can't go broke. Payroll taxes come in, they go back out. The worst that can happen is that they only pay a fraction of what the various people are theoretically entitled to (current CBO estimates are that if we do nothing, that will work out to 80% when the system runs out of money in 2052; which is actually more in real dollers than people are getting now).

Now strictly speaking, the system will start to run short on or around 2014 (unless people are stupid enough to Dubya and Congress enact this private account ripoff; in which case it runs short instantly). However, back in the 80s the payroll taxes were raised with the specific thought of the baby boomers retiring in mind; so there is a cushion of money in the system. Granted, Congress (the GOP) made off with this surplus and squandered it; but they were obliged to replace the money with T-bills.

T-bills are debt instruments; so when they come due, the government must repay them first. Congress doesn't even get paid before debt repayment is handled. So as far as the surplus goes, all of that money they took must be replaced, plus interest; and this money will keep the system fully funded for decades.

Of course, it's also legally required that 90% of all wages earned be subject to taxation to fund the SS system; and the GOP is deliberately flouting that law (it's currently 85%, because the rich have gotten so much richer than everyone else). We can easily raise the limit on the taxable amount from the current $98,000 to (say) $120,000; fund the system in full, obey the law, and take not one cent from the working or vast majority of the middle class to do it. You'll have to wait for the Democrats to take Congress back before it happens (Dubya has already flat refused to even consider it); but it's the simple, non-regressive, and will likely keep the system in chips for centuries.

One final thought; Dubya's people have been forced to reveal some details of his plan. It turns out that his plan is to greatly cut benefits; while forcing the lower classes (everyone reading this who happens to be a US citizen) to replace the money the GOP made off with, by treating their private accounts as a loan from the government. At the same time, he vastly increases the government debt; so the impoverished system must eventually be sacrificed. It's the purest class warfare type ripoff you can imagine, actually; tens of trillions of dollars to his buddies, and he gets to kill Social Security in the process. What a guy. With Republicans like him, who needs Osama?

Ok, the "Hippie" Baby Boomer Generation started around 1945. The congress projection of SS running out of gas is 2052. So do the math: how old will the baby boomers be when this happens? How many of them will be left? No one takes this into consideration. SS will have issues becasue of the huge baby boomer generation, a problem that will largely have died with the baby boomers BEFORE SS runs out of T-Bills between 2042 and 2080, meaning the workers will start supporting fewer retirees, and the problem just vanishes (again) before it really gets going.

So: SS is in crisis if the economy doesn't grow, if we don't take on a simple fix like raising taxes or raising the limit for payroll taxes, and if we magically cure old age, and everyone starts living more than 100 years (in which case we can probably safely raise the age of retirement).

Sure sounds like a more urgent fiscal crisis then, say THE HUGE FREAKING DEFICIT!!!!!

Bush is advocating what no responsible (read licenced by the SEC) financial advisor would recommend to a client:

Borrow money at 3% interest (T-Bill rates) to speculate on stocks, hoping to return more than 6%, in order to earn more than the 3% (the 6% less the borrowing at 3%) you would have earned if you hadn't borrowed the money in the first place.

Now, if this sounds like one of those great Yogi Berra Miller Lite commercials from the 1980's, well, it isn't.

Personally, I don't think it's right that the government should be able to force anybody to save up for retirement, be it their own or somebody else's. Individual rights are the basis of the country.

Personally, I don't either; but I don't because there would be a lot of idiots who would grow old and starve to death (too stupid to save), and I think the government should stop protecting idiots from themselves.

Lest we cast too much asparagus at the financial wisdom of the typical US citizen (which isn't all that great, truthfully); I'd still like to see anyone save for retirement on $8.00 an hour, with no health plan or benefits.

'Cause, y'know, the average US citizen is a wage slave until they're sixty-five.