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Regarding the Environment:
The president talked about new energy sources, fuel cells, and other initiatives helpful environment. He said next to nothing about what he proposes to actually do to to further any of these things. My favorite: Nuclear power. Just my opinion, but I don't think "Safe and Clean" nuclear power exists. I have worked for our Hydro Company here in Ontario as a sysadmin providing nuclear support. I live spitting distance from a nuke plant. This is just my two cents from an insider perspective.
While I'm on the environment, I am just wondering how many of those "non-producing programs" Bush’s plan to reduce deficit/debt have something to do with the environment by what yard stick they judge what produces and what doesn't. The administration has slashed funding to the EPA This administration has had a horrible environmental record. Kyoto? Who needs it? Bad for business!
Regarding Social Security:
I can tell you what I support what we did here in Canada. It became quite obvious some years ago that our old age pension (we don’t call it Social Security here, we call it the Canadian Pension Plan) was unsustainable. We did two things to fix it:
1. As is the Canadian way we increased taxes on it about three-fold. This was done to save the program against the rising tide of soon to be retired Baby Boomers.
2. We have an alternative as well: What’s called RSP's or retirement savings plans. There is very little government control on this here and it provides remarkable leeway in how you can invest it and what you can do with it. You can invest in stocks, bonds, trusts, securities you name it. In fact, you can self-direct the entire thing. You can borrow against it for many reasons with very lenient payback options, mortgage down payments, education, just about anything and it is still totally tax sheltered. This is one of my personal primary focuses of retirement planning.
What I heard from Bush was:
I don't want to increase taxes at all and in order to "save" Social Security I will slash these benefits (post spin on the democrat side says up to 40%), which makes sense that He is going to slash, otherwise why placate the 55+ crowds that their benefits will not touched? Not once did I hear that he would cut any benefits. All I heard from the president was the usual fear tactic, spiraling costs, etc. Well, no matter what He slashes and burns Social Security in America to the cost of it is still going to go up, as everything does. His analysis is quite obviously based on never increasing the amount taxed.
I will then institute a form of RSP with all kinds of controls on it. Can't take much out, must be doled out over time, somehow he plans to control “Wall street” fees. Just curious as to how he plans to do that? For a President that is ostensibly so against “big government controls” and so pro free market enterprise there seems to be an odd irony here. On a personal note, I find it even more interesting that I live in such an oft defamed “Socialist” nation as compared to the much vaunted “Capitalist” U.S. Still, this one step in itself is better than nothing, which is what most American’s had before.
Bush seems to be looking for a cure all to the issue. As per usual He wants to slash and burn while offering the appearance to the populace that he is protecting Social Security without actually spending any more money or increasing taxes. While I do not have the actual minutes he spent substantially more time espousing the grand tradition of Social Security then what the cuts that would mean less money for people, excepting the above mentioned placating statement that he would not change benefits to those 55+. In fact, He made it sound like Social Security was totally out of control and he was going to rescue it. Never did Bush even implicitly state that these benefits would affect the bottom line of the old folks collecting.
As an aside, the language on this issue was fascinating: Not once did I hear the word “cuts” the entire time. As compared to when he talks about tax cuts when it’s every third word. IMHO, it seems to me that the perception of the content is far more valued to this president than the actual content of the message. Of course, this is pretty much true of all those involved in the political game in my experience. Doublespeak is in prime action right here. If average Joe didn’t know better listening to this I am willing to bet he would think that his benefits were not going to be affected at all after paying into this all his life on minimum wage at a Wall mart type job. I guess intellectual dishonesty is just par for the course.
Regarding further warfare:
The President specifically mentioned Syria and Iran to stop harboring terrorists. He put some very forceful language on Iran to stop “all enrichment of plutonium”. Nothing particularly surprising here excepting that I am never quite sure who is next on the hit list. Sometimes it seems to be North Korea (mentioned only in passing tonight), sometimes its Iran, sometimes and it’s Syria. For a President that markets himself with statements like “people always know where I stand” well, I don’t.
What I do know is that while Bush made mention of a withdrawal of troops from Iraq I highly doubt anyone’s going home soon. One of these places is bound to be invaded or usurped next.
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