On to West Virginia

Two notes from the President's latest attempt to sell his plan:

"There is no trust fund," Bush said. "Just IOUs that I saw first hand, that future generations will pay. They'll pay for them by either higher taxes or reduced benefits or cuts to other critical government programs."

I guess the smokescreen of private accounts has been proven useless and the President no longer touts it as a plan to "save" Social Security. Those things he lists (higher taxes, benefit cuts) will have to happen regardless of the outcome of his "privatization" tour. So rather than screwing around visiting the prop that is the Bureau of Public Debt, the President could take some actual leadership and figure out where cuts should be made or taxes increased. Instead, he's out shilling his supposed cure to make you rich and virile while dodging the real work to do.

The president said many Americans mistakenly assume that the Social Security taxes deducted from their paychecks are set aside in a special account — to be paid back to them when they retire — when in fact the government uses the funds to pay benefits to today's retirees and finance other government programs.

To be quite honest, this has always bothered me a little. I imagine that most Americans don't think twice about which tax goes where. There are too busy trying to pay off their credit cards or refinancing their house. Their concern for where the money goes was probably limited at best until the President came along with his fearmongering and false crisis.

Now that people hear Social Security on the news, it has moved up the list of current concerns. But again, this is not because people are nervous about where their taxes are going, but rather if they are going to get their benefits once they retire. The short answer is yes, they will get their benefits if nothing is done one way or another. Which ever party denies them will be out of office for decades, and their is no way around it.