What did you think of Bush's speech?

I personally think reforming social security is a good idea, for the ideas that he mentioned. in its current state, it will be drowning in red ink within the next few decades, and my generation gets it up the a**. I'm in favor of gradually converting social security into small individual accounts, which you would pay into every month.

RE: the war on terror, what Bush said was very motivational.

I'm glad he mentioned Social Security first, because right after that he talked about his views on gay marriage and stem cell research so I tuned him out until the end.

Or you could have listened and disagreed...

Social Security is defunct program created in the 1930s for a 1930s economy to save a 1930s nation. Now that people are living MUCH longer than they used to, people are going to be depended on this growingly defunct program longer than their elders did. Take a chunk of YOUR money and putting into a private fund for YOUR needs is the best way to go. It will grow faster than social security. I'm reaallly big on that.

You controlling your money == uber win.

I listened to music instead.

It's one of those systems that can't really be stopped. They put all our money in the general fund instead of investing it, so the only way to pay the people who are retiring now, is to keep it going. And if they stop it, all the people who've been paying into it for years will be really ticked off. Even if they did a method by which people stopped paying and were paid you back in proportion to the time they were paying into it, people would pitch a fit about "hurting seniors" and start talking about people's "right to retire". The trouble is, most Americans are too short sighted and stupid to save money, but instead will choose to spend the extra money and stupid useless things, and still end up getting into debt. Then when they want to retire they'll have no money too, and they’ll pitch a big fit, and the president in office will re-institute social security to get more votes. The system is bad, but it’s kept going by and bunch of stupid, selfish, useless people.

I thought it was interesting how he listed various solutions and said he would listen to all ideas, and then basically said he already made up his minds on personal accounts. The actual state of social security aside (he chose studies that supported his claims), the only way to create personal accounts while maintaining current benifits is to take money from elsewhere and shove it into the current program. If this goes through, people are predicting the national debt to jump well into the trillians. With the value of the dollar as unstable as it is now, a massive increase to national debt could play havok with our economy.

Good speach. He nailed many points. Being an emotional man, I actually had some tears towards the end. God bless America and her President.

I slept through it.

I listened to a bit while I was eating supper, there was a lot of applause, it sounded like a good speech but I wasn't really listening... Mmm roast.

Here's a transcript of the speech for anyone who missed it. I missed it myself, so I'm reading it right now. I will probably post my thoughts in a minute.

What about gay marriage? What about abortion? What about stem cell research? Where are those things? Are they not important anymore?

Dude, I thought you were Canandian...

haha, hell no

Funny thing is I'm not really religious.



He talked about the constitutional ammendment he wants against gay marriage. He talked against basically harvesting fetuses (feti?) for parts. Pretty held his positions that also happen to be the popular opinions on the issues.

Well, I agree SS is a crap program. If it was a forced savings account instead of a retarded 'workers of today pay for old people of today' system it wouldn't be anywhere near as broke...and would be very simple to abolish when we got sick of it.

However much I like the idea of having control of my money to invest, I feel this program will probably cause major havok with the US economy. In short: it was a better idea than the system we have in place, but unless you can mail it to 75 years ago...its going to be an ugly, ugly transition.

I'm hoping he does the same thing with those that he did with healthcare, blow-harding-do-nothing.

I dont agree with him pushing for a Constitutional Amendment against Gay Marriage. As a Southern boy, I'm partial to State's rights. Individual states should have a say on who can marry whom, actually they shouldnt, but if it does come down to that, it should be up to the states. And if one state allows gay marriage, the other states better honor it. I know this will cause all the gay people to go get married then come home, but you know what? IT'S NOT HURTING ME!

I also dont agree with SS. I think that we should just end the program altogether. Like someone else said, just cut some random government program that doesnt do anything and use those funds to pay back workers a small % of what they put in. I'm sorry, but I really dont care about the $15-20 they take out every month, and since it's percentage based, those of you that are going to say "Well, you dont make enough" that's a set percentage of what I make, even if I was making 10x more, I still wouldnt miss that percentage.

Sorry, but I miss the $177 they take out of my check every month. Last year it totalled $2055. Granted that was only about 4% of my total income but still...

I agree Schming, I think this is a states issue. I pretty much hate anything that puts more power to the federal government and takes it from the states.

While I have no problem with gay marriage myself...If Alabama or some other place wants to ban it, so be it. But when they start telling me what my state can or cannot do, I start getting a bit pissed.

Something to remember is that the ammendment process requires 75% of the states to ratify the ammendment so it's not really a case of the federal government dictating to the states.

This was the first State of the Union I didn't bother to watch in a few years. It's not like anything Bush said was a surprise if one had been paying attention, and I doubt he'll have any success because Washington is so incredibly partisan. It wouldn't matter if Bush put forth a bill that gave everyone 500,000 bucks, the Democrats would vote it down. For the reverse idea, there'e Clinton and the Republicans. The situation, in a word, BLOWS!

No, it's a case of the majority dictating to the minorities.

Anything radical that Bush proposed would be shot down now anyways. All his cohorts in Congress are up for re-election, while Bush (thank god he's not FDR) is not. When he leaves office, there won't be anybody there to support his radical ideas that got passed if they support them, and that means that they won't get re-elected.

So, for once I can be thankful that Republican ideals start in the pocket.

I'm unaware of anything Bush is proposing that could honestly be considered radical.



Is that how you view the legislative process? Even if that's the case, what's wrong with that? It's not like things would be better if the minority dictated to the majority.

That is democracy.

Do blacks not deserve rights because they are a minority? The majority would not be adversely effected.

If minorities like African Americans could dictate policy then programs like Affirmative Action, Welfare, would be even worse. This isn't meant to sound like a stereotype, but those programs were insitututed to help the minority, and many say they still aren't enough. Democracy is the majority "dictating" to the minority.

Here's the BIG common misconception about our style of government. We're NOT a democracy. SHOCKING! If were were a democracy, EVERYTHING would be majority ruled. But that's not the case. We have a Constitution that prevents radical laws that the majority would pass. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. We are a republic.

The amendment to ban gays marrying for example. A democracy would pass this in 5 minutes (if sufficient numbers). Our government requires 2/3s of BOTH houses of Congress and 75% of the states to ratify. The Framers made it difficult to change the supreme law of the land.

You honestly see nothing wrong with voting other people's rights away?

Bush's presentation of Social Security is the most dishonest I've ever heard from a public official. The Social Security system has been running huge surplus for the last two decades, enough excess money to pay full benefits without raising taxes until '42 or '52, depending on who you ask. The surplus have been diminishing for years now, primarily because of the aging population. In '18, the surplus will become a deficit, and Social Security will have to start drawing on its massive reserves. This is not unexpected. This is why Social Security has massive reserves.

Now, rather than leave the reserve to lose value to inflation every year, the government has invested it each year into Treasury Bonds, loaning money from a profitable branch (Social Security) to unprofitable branches (practically everything else). There is nothing wrong with this. The United States has never defaulted on a loan. If the United States does default on its Treasury Bonds, Social Security will be the least of our concerns. We'll probably be eating our old people instead of paying for their retirements. It's just another indication that the US needs to tighten up and start running a surplus, preferably by electing a fiscally-responsible Democrat instead of a borrow-and-spend Republican.

We have anywhere from 37 to 47 years in which find a way to take in more money or pay out less. We could make SS a flat instead of regressive tax. We could pay out x% benefits after 2050, where x is less than 100. We could do those other things Bush mentioned. Or we could reduce the amount of money SS takes in, giving it instead to investment bankers who, after skimming an appropriate amount off the top, will hold onto it for 50 years, bringing the deadlines closer and making an eventually collapse much more likely. Guess which option Bush supports? The SS system works by current workers paying for current retirees. If current workers pay some portion of their SS taxes to private funds where neither they nor the government can access it, it becomes difficult for the government to pay retirees their due. Basically, if you want to set up private investment accounts, it'll have to be on top of current payroll taxes. So why let the government manage it at all?

But this is a federal republic, which, it happens, constitutionally guarantees rights and protections for minorities. Which is why fundamentalists are attempting to pass a constitutional amendment, because the Constitution, as it is today, forbids the discrimination they feel is necessary to make law.

I've yet to meet one of those. California elected a tax and spend Democrat. New York has one of the highest spending Senators that house has known. Unless you have a different approach of "fiscally responsible" than I do.

That was my point. He didn't propose anything radical, because he knows he won't recieve any support.

There's a difference between spending for your state and spending on a needless war. The only thing that's going to come of Iraq when the solution that Bush is seeking comes, is another dictatorship. Only this time, it'll be a dictatorship with an American trained military (a VERY formidible fighting force). Which means it'll be a dictatorship that the US can ally with so as not to be in a conflict with people who won't randomly blow us up.. Instead we'd be fighting people trained as well as our own. Great plan George.

Well, let's face it JediGandalf, nearly anyone other than Bush would have spent less money than he over the past four years. I'm not necessarily putting a bad spin on that, but it's true.

So thousands and thousands of people braving crowds and VERY EASY suicide bomber targets and voting for their next leader is dictatorship? Dictatorship would have been our troops pointing their M-16s at Iraqi civilians and ordering them to vote.

That's all I'll talk about Iraq. I don't want to start a HUGE derailment about Iraq.

I'd be interested to see what Bush said on stem cell research. Bush's current policy is that federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is restricted to cell lines already in existance. These cell lines have found to be contaminated, and so basically completely useless. It's a fatal blow to the already antiquated stem cell policy, and the Bush Administration really needs to implement a new policy because new cell lines are the only ones that are reliable and useful.

You know, instead of changing social security to a "private savings account omg you control your OWN money!!1", why don't they just let you keep your own money to begin with?

Like JediGandalf said, one of the founding principles of our system of government is "majority rule, minority rights". Even though the majority indirectly dictates policy in our country through elections of representatives, we have a judicial system with the power of judicial review in order to protect the rights of the minority. Every time bush or anyone else goes on a rant about curbing "judicial activism", they want to limit the judiciary's ability to protect the rights of those who may not be looked on so favorably by the majority. It was the ultimate act of judicial activism, Brown v Board of Education, that desegrated our country and reversed a policy that most today think was a huge mistake.

No, I think you've got it wrong. Bush's goal is to cull totally stupid lawsuits from being considered. Like suing someone because they gave you a dirty look or you spilled coffee on yourself, etc.