Everybody else is...
Feb. 1st, 2006 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdSTATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT
a few things said about what got said
In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting -- yet it ends in danger and decline.
The placement of this element makes me think that there's more urge to protectionism going on than I'm aware of to date. Perhaps he wants to pre-empt it as a 2006 issue. I don't know.
Second, we're continuing reconstruction efforts [in Iraq]
And cutting off funding at the end of the current cycle. I've talked about this being worrisome before. I'm annoyed that he's pretending that's not going on.
Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy.
"Don't talk about how we botched the occupation." Personally, I'm pro-responsibility. Call me foolish, call me irresponsible, scribble on my birth certificate and rename me Snaarki...
The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.
Good luck with that.
That said: here's the thing. A lot of people are saying, "And look who they voted for!" Well, yeah. What did you expect? The good side of this is that the cards are on the table and you've got a group that's not going to pretend they have ideas they don't have. The bad sides are, well, deeply obvious on every level. Israel's going to build its wall and sit on it for a while, watching. It's going to suck, but if people will be honest again for a while, maybe that's a starting point.
Others say that the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy, centralizing more power in Washington
That's pretty funny coming from this president.
And we can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto.
The line-item veto?! That's his solution to the budget deficit? The line-item fucking veto?!
Has this man met a power he doesn't want consolidated to his very own self? He's already saying he can effectively rewrite legislation through signing statements (and Justice Alito is on his side on this, in a position I cannot fathom), now he apparently wants to do copy-editing.
With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.
That 33:1 Chinese:American wage ratio is pretty severe, though. Too bad China is in no hurry to revaluate the Yuan.
Here's where things get serious:
The Ford Model A
Here's the thing: from what I've been able to read about over the last year, if we donate every square inch of farmland to ethanol and/or biodiesel production, we can produce, ignoring energy input costs, and using the best and newest and hghest-efficiency methods, around 85% of what we currently use for transportation alone as of 2005. Unfortunately, we also need food.
Ignoring that, what this clarification might mean depends upon several unknowns. However, there is a extant (if fantasyland) set of predictions which have nonetheless been used by the government for the last many years, based upon the concept that Saudi Arabian oil suppliers can produce as much oil as is needed to meet demand for the foreseeable future. By 2025, that would assume a production amount of between 20Mbpd and 25Mpbd from Saudi Arabia alone. This will not happen, occasional Saudi governmental assurances to the contrary. But leaving that aside as well, this opens the possibility that he meant 75% of those numbers, reduced by the portion that would be our imports. That would mean a much higher ethanol/biodiesel production target of around 4-5Mbpd. That's still small, but it's much better than 1.6Mbpd. This is actually an improvement, from my standpoint, over the original.
The second thing it did, of course, was smooth ruffled Saudi feathers, telling them not to worry, we'll still be sending dollars their way in droves, and that the whole "weaning ourselves from middle-eastern oil" shtick was just for the rubes and they shouldn't worry about it, particularly not lines like:
What really bothers me is that this president will not ask Americans to face any difficult reality. He'll ask us to give up privacy, he'll ask us to up rights, he'll ask us to trust him with more power on a permanent basis than any President has asked for before...
...but drive more fuel-efficient cars? Move closer to where you work? Pay more for gas to reduce oil dependence and improve our balance of payments over time? Apparently, that's too fucking much to ask. This President talks about difficult choices and sacrifice, but then acts as if the American public is utterly incapable of them, and, as a result, treats the citizenry as children.
I really hate that.
Moving on:
This is the kind of research he's asked Congress to ban. What the fundamentalists call "creating human-animal hybrids" is a vital and important method of researching genetic abnormalities; transferring defective human genetics into laboratory animals where these genetic abnormalities don't exist, so that they can be studied with goals to finding treatments and cures. After spending a lot of time talking up science education, he immediately turns around proposes research bans that would cripple American biomedicine, as a reward to his fundamentalist base who have decided that a zygote - most of which die naturally before implantation under the best of circumstances - is a person.
That pre-implantation death rate is important, because, if you ask me, even if you do buy into Biblical literalism, a 70% composite death rate would seem to indicate that Jehovah doesn't give a rat's ass about those fucking floating cells.
Not that this makes any difference to someone talking to James Dobson every week.
This is, frankly, the most disturbing part of the speech. These are exactly the kind of things we need to have the most of if we're going to keep a coherent economy in the face of globalism, and he's helping fuck it up.
A few months ago, I posted a bit of commentary about how the American fundamentalist movement was trying to make the exact same mistake the Arabic countries made in the 13th and 14th centuries. This is that kind of mistake; it's the next mistake in the series of mistakes that lead to failure.
Most of the speech was things I expected. I was glad to see him stiff the fundamentalists on the marriage amendment. I'm glad that some mention is being made of energy, and though I wish it would be taken more seriously than this, at least it's a start. This biology thing, though - that's bad. Hopefully there's enough money threatened that the corporate interests will work to keep it from actually happening, and that will be enough to help the rationalists win.
a few things said about what got said
In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting -- yet it ends in danger and decline.
The placement of this element makes me think that there's more urge to protectionism going on than I'm aware of to date. Perhaps he wants to pre-empt it as a 2006 issue. I don't know.
Second, we're continuing reconstruction efforts [in Iraq]
And cutting off funding at the end of the current cycle. I've talked about this being worrisome before. I'm annoyed that he's pretending that's not going on.
Hindsight alone is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy.
"Don't talk about how we botched the occupation." Personally, I'm pro-responsibility. Call me foolish, call me irresponsible, scribble on my birth certificate and rename me Snaarki...
The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.
Good luck with that.
That said: here's the thing. A lot of people are saying, "And look who they voted for!" Well, yeah. What did you expect? The good side of this is that the cards are on the table and you've got a group that's not going to pretend they have ideas they don't have. The bad sides are, well, deeply obvious on every level. Israel's going to build its wall and sit on it for a while, watching. It's going to suck, but if people will be honest again for a while, maybe that's a starting point.
Others say that the government needs to take a larger role in directing the economy, centralizing more power in Washington
That's pretty funny coming from this president.
And we can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto.
The line-item veto?! That's his solution to the budget deficit? The line-item fucking veto?!
Has this man met a power he doesn't want consolidated to his very own self? He's already saying he can effectively rewrite legislation through signing statements (and Justice Alito is on his side on this, in a position I cannot fathom), now he apparently wants to do copy-editing.
With open markets and a level playing field, no one can out-produce or out-compete the American worker.
That 33:1 Chinese:American wage ratio is pretty severe, though. Too bad China is in no hurry to revaluate the Yuan.
Here's where things get serious:
Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. ... So tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22-percent increase in clean-energy research -- at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas.Other sources say that the total energy research budget in President Bush's 2006 budget is actually cut significantly. Saying one thing, doing another; not a plus in my book.
To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission coal-fired plants, revolutionary solar and wind technologies, and clean, safe nuclear energy.zero-emission coal? zero-emission coal? How's that work, then? However: you can do some interesting things with liquified fuels made from coal. Perhaps this is what he means. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that's it.
We must also change how we power our automobiles. We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen.Oh good, the safe, long-term, far-away hydrogen miracle, making Americans think we're doing something when we don't have to worry about actual competition to our core oil business.
We'll also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn, but from wood chips and stalks, or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.Various sources this morning - including, again to my disgust, NPR - were talking about "breakthroughs" that let cars run on either gasoline or ethanol. Hey, folks, want to see the first one of these?
The Ford Model A
Here's the thing: from what I've been able to read about over the last year, if we donate every square inch of farmland to ethanol and/or biodiesel production, we can produce, ignoring energy input costs, and using the best and newest and hghest-efficiency methods, around 85% of what we currently use for transportation alone as of 2005. Unfortunately, we also need food.
Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.A clarification this morning - that he didn't mean that literally and that we'd still be importing oil from the Middle East because that's where most of the oil is - served two major purposes. First, it made the whole statement even more confusing than it already was. As several sources have noted, most of our imports don't come from the middle east. 75% of the amount we currently import from the region is about 1.6Mbpd, which isn't a whole hell of a lot, and it's over a very long timeframe - 20 years in modern political terms translates directly into, "sometime after I'm out of office and I don't have to care." In short, 20-year timeframes are bullshit.
Ignoring that, what this clarification might mean depends upon several unknowns. However, there is a extant (if fantasyland) set of predictions which have nonetheless been used by the government for the last many years, based upon the concept that Saudi Arabian oil suppliers can produce as much oil as is needed to meet demand for the foreseeable future. By 2025, that would assume a production amount of between 20Mbpd and 25Mpbd from Saudi Arabia alone. This will not happen, occasional Saudi governmental assurances to the contrary. But leaving that aside as well, this opens the possibility that he meant 75% of those numbers, reduced by the portion that would be our imports. That would mean a much higher ethanol/biodiesel production target of around 4-5Mbpd. That's still small, but it's much better than 1.6Mbpd. This is actually an improvement, from my standpoint, over the original.
The second thing it did, of course, was smooth ruffled Saudi feathers, telling them not to worry, we'll still be sending dollars their way in droves, and that the whole "weaning ourselves from middle-eastern oil" shtick was just for the rubes and they shouldn't worry about it, particularly not lines like:
and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past.I really get upset at things like this.
What really bothers me is that this president will not ask Americans to face any difficult reality. He'll ask us to give up privacy, he'll ask us to up rights, he'll ask us to trust him with more power on a permanent basis than any President has asked for before...
...but drive more fuel-efficient cars? Move closer to where you work? Pay more for gas to reduce oil dependence and improve our balance of payments over time? Apparently, that's too fucking much to ask. This President talks about difficult choices and sacrifice, but then acts as if the American public is utterly incapable of them, and, as a result, treats the citizenry as children.
I really hate that.
Moving on:
Yet many Americans, especially parents, still have deep concerns about the direction of our culture, and the health of our most basic institutions. They're concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage.Well, there's the token fagbashing. Focus on the Family is nonplussed that he gave it so little mention; they wanted a plug for the Federal Marriage Amendment, and didn't get it. Good. Fuck those guys.
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybridsTake that, Big Bird!
and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos. Human life is a gift from our Creator -- and that gift should never be discarded, devalued or put up for sale. (Applause.)Okay, the last line is fundy spooge, but that and Big Bird jokes aside, let's look at what he was really talking about.
This is the kind of research he's asked Congress to ban. What the fundamentalists call "creating human-animal hybrids" is a vital and important method of researching genetic abnormalities; transferring defective human genetics into laboratory animals where these genetic abnormalities don't exist, so that they can be studied with goals to finding treatments and cures. After spending a lot of time talking up science education, he immediately turns around proposes research bans that would cripple American biomedicine, as a reward to his fundamentalist base who have decided that a zygote - most of which die naturally before implantation under the best of circumstances - is a person.
That pre-implantation death rate is important, because, if you ask me, even if you do buy into Biblical literalism, a 70% composite death rate would seem to indicate that Jehovah doesn't give a rat's ass about those fucking floating cells.
Not that this makes any difference to someone talking to James Dobson every week.
This is, frankly, the most disturbing part of the speech. These are exactly the kind of things we need to have the most of if we're going to keep a coherent economy in the face of globalism, and he's helping fuck it up.
A few months ago, I posted a bit of commentary about how the American fundamentalist movement was trying to make the exact same mistake the Arabic countries made in the 13th and 14th centuries. This is that kind of mistake; it's the next mistake in the series of mistakes that lead to failure.
Most of the speech was things I expected. I was glad to see him stiff the fundamentalists on the marriage amendment. I'm glad that some mention is being made of energy, and though I wish it would be taken more seriously than this, at least it's a start. This biology thing, though - that's bad. Hopefully there's enough money threatened that the corporate interests will work to keep it from actually happening, and that will be enough to help the rationalists win.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 06:57 pm (UTC), including me,Here's the thing: Pork is, was, and always shall be. All that the line-item veto does on that front is consolidate the spoils purely to the majority party. In my view, total corruption would rise, not fall.
Not to mention what it does from a consolidation-of-power-with-the-executive standpoint, particularly when combined with signing statements meaning law. (I think that's very unconstitutional.)It was his speech, he can take the heat.It'd work the same way it works now, with a slow, multi-year raise in CAFE standards. What you'd probably see is more diesel; switching to diesel as the standard auto fuel would cut consumption by 40%, all else equal.
As things are set up right now, maybe. But if there's a sustained oil supply loss, as sooner or later there is guaranteed to be, they're going to, one way or another.
One of my bigger pet projects - but something that is more of a state and city level issue and not a Federal issue - is changing the default support for civic planing from "car only" to "car-accessible and pedestrian friendly." Having a single-mode-only transportation opportunity is asking for failure.
Right now, in most parts of the country, if you build a housing development, you are mandated to make it work for cars. [Attn
Where I live, this is not the case; I can drive everywhere, but I have no need to do so. I have more than one option; I am not bound to my car. Currently most residential planning strongly pushes people towards driving; I want that goal eliminated and recentred for mutual accommodation.Note that I do not and have not called for any form of "windfall profits tax."Treat people like babies, they'll act like babies.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 07:20 pm (UTC)I assume, then, that you gave Clinton the same heat during each of his eight years?
Not to mention what it does from a consolidation-of-power-with-the-executive standpoint
Again, the legislative branch can override his veto(s).
Besides, as was the case with prior administrations, line-item veto is lip service. The Supreme Court would shoot it down.
It'd work the same way it works now, with a slow, multi-year raise in CAFE standards.
So then, in this case, the status quo would suffice. So where is the issue?
There is no similar mandate towards making it work for pedestrians, bicyclists, or other transportation methods; in fact, in many cases, planning guidelines work against these goals via what I consider to be zoning-code abuse.
In some cases - like where I live - the board of supervisors aren't even requiring that developers provide money to improve infrastructure to support the added growth.
Currently most residential planning strongly pushes people towards driving; I want that goal eliminated and recentred for mutual accommodation
It sounds a bit like EPCOT :)
Where would the funding for improving mass transit come from? What would be the incentive for companies to move to these recentered areas?
Treat people like babies, they'll act like babies.
People act like babies regardless. The bi-partisan comissions for Social Security and Tax reform were villified. Why? Because people would have to make personal sacrifices.
You can't blame just the Bush administration for coddling the American people. Bush tried to make the American people make sacrifices. What happened? The Democrats blocked any and all reform discussion and then gave themselves a standing ovation for doing so.
Part of the problem here is that the ultimate goal of a politician (except for my state's governor) is to get re-elected. You don't get re-elected by making unpopular decisions.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 07:40 pm (UTC)Thus helping, again, consolidate the pork with the ruling party. Also, have you ever read the Soviet constitution? The original one, in particular? "All power to the executive with legislative override" doesn't fucking work as a primary governmental operating method - well, unless you like dictatorship-like-levels of power with the executive.
Then it's not a very good answer for the budget deficit, is it?
I should have used the past tense: "worked." CAFE standards have been frozen for 20 years. Let them rise again.
I've been to Disneyland, I love it; I've never been to the Florida complex, so I can't comment.
Well, first, I'm talking about walkability and bikability. Currently, if you make a residential development in most parts of the country, you're paying for all the roads in the area developed and the roads connecting that to the grid. And you're designing roads that discourage walking to places, and planning around zoning codes that puts "places to walk to other than parks" too far away. Intelligent layout changes can (and have been shown to; this is something working, in some parts of the country) retain the car-compatibility while making the development more attractive for walkers, bikers, etc. It does, however, require changes in planning, and, in many cases, the removal or modification of certain zoning rules.
Connection to a transit background, on the other hand, could be accomplished in much the same way that connections to highways is done now. If you're talking rail, spur-and-hub would work pretty well. Bus could be done similarly, really. But again, right now, I can walk to two shopping cores, and it's a pleasant walk that doesn't take all that long. (Around 20 minutes if I'm taking my time; I can bike it in less than five.) No daily necessities of life require a car. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. To get to my studio (and hopefully soon to school), I can either bike the 10 miles, or have an eight minute walk (three minute bike) to an express bus station. Or I can drive to a highway. But I prefer the other choices.
This arrangement also means I don't need to use the treadmill. ^_^
I don't. But this is his speech, and his opportunity, and his Presidency. He's the topic right now.Oh, my shiny metal ass he did. What was his post-9/11 call? "Go shopping! Don't worry about it, let us do that!" How as Iraq going to go? "Out in six months!" I called bullshit on that from the start - ask
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 08:07 pm (UTC)Just trying to determine if your opposition was to the line-item veto, or to Bush's call for it. I wasn't meaning to imply anything, and I apologize if you interpreted that way. I am not trying to start a flame war or agitate - just trying to have a discussion.
Also, have you ever read the Soviet constitution? The original one, in particular?
No, I have not.
Then it's not a very good answer for the budget deficit, is it?
No, it isn't. A good answer for the budget deficit is to reduce spending. Stop growing government. I was speaking primarily to what the current - and past - Presidents have used to defend their call for this particular bit of power.
I've been to Disneyland, I love it; I've never been to the Florida complex, so I can't comment.
You should go to Disney World sometime - it blows away the California version, IMHO. EPCOT (Experimental Protocol Community Of Tomorrow), as envisioned by Walt, was a community where people would live where they worked.
No daily necessities of life require a car.
Big food shopping might. I couldn't imagine trying to haul all of our groceries for the week or on a bus.
Intelligent layout changes can (and have been shown to; this is something working, in some parts of the country) retain the car-compatibility while making the development more attractive for walkers, bikers, etc. It does, however, require changes in planning, and, in many cases, the removal or modification of certain zoning rules.
Do you work in urban planning by any chance?
Oh, my shiny metal ass he did.
He did, at least with his Social Security reform proposal. AARP and Pelosi didn't like it one bit, and didn't offer any alternatives.
I would think a post-9/11 call to conserve energy, reform social security and the tax code, and cut government spending wouldn't have been received very well. Some might have seen it as being opportunistic.
He and the Republicans talk smaller government and talk personal responsibility, but they sure don't walk it.
Which is why I, as a conservative, am pissed at him and the House and Senate Republicans. One party controlling the legislative and executive branch is a bad thing. Then again, so is partisan bickering and stonewalling.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:10 pm (UTC)I recommend it. In particular, I recommend studying the structure of the relationship between the legislative and de facto executive branches. Given what was done with that structure, I think you will better understand my reaction against anything which emulates it.
That needs more elaboration. I think I'll write more below.
Which is exactly why I was upset at it being proposed as such. It's not a good answer; it's not even particularly relevant.
What it is relevant to, however, is consolidation of power to the executive. This has been going on for some time, but it is, I think, attempting to reach a particular critical mass. The effort is three-pronged, this being the third prong. The first prong: Unlimited executive power to wage war, even when a war has not been formally declared. (And no, I don't consider an authorisation of force to be the same as a formal declaration of war. Similarly, I don't think that the War on Terror qualifies as that kind of war, because, in the words of officials of this administration, it will go on indefinitely with no defined end. In other words: "wartime" is the new "normal time," and I do not want to see wartime powers - as conceived of in a time of Total War - to be applied to this kind of circumstance. You may as well set the Constitution on fire if you're going to do that.)
The second prong is the previously-mentioned "signing statement" where the President gets to "reinterpret" the law with no Congressional opportunity for rebuttal, much less overrule. This lets the President change laws as he sees fit with little to no oversight beyond a court system that he gets to stack. C.f. President Bush's signing statement on the McCain Amendment, where he said that this doesn't apply to him or people he exempts from it. Whether you agree with the McCain Amendment or not - and I strongly do, and lobbied my legislators for it - this amounts to unwriting the law even while signing it. I do not believe there is any way whatsoever that this is compatible with the Constitution - but he's just appointed a Supreme Court justice who thinks it is, and with no Congressional retort available, the Court is all that matters.
The third, of course, is the line item veto, which would let him tailor spending to his personal vision. Control of the purse string is control of the government; this hands most of that power to the executive. Yes, Congress can override portions of it, but that's not going to happen very often to the party in power.
The effect of these three initiatives, two of which are already in place, is to reorient the government permanently into something very close to the Soviet model of a central executive doing most of the governing, with a rump legislature who can object after the fact. The difference is that, in most cases, Congress must still initiate some of the spending. But not all of it.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-02 09:53 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, in many instances (especially on LJ), that is the case. It happens on the left and the right - finally a bi-partisan issue! :)
Since I am new to your blog, I was just checking to see if you were being reasonable, and you were. As I mentioned, no offense was intended.
I don't consider an authorisation of force to be the same as a formal declaration of war.
Nor do I, and I find it irritating when some do. Similarly, I find it irritating when people say that voting for the authorisation of the use of force wasn't really them authorising the use of force. It was really about authorising the threat of force. Yeah, that's it!
Yes, Congress can override portions of it, but that's not going to happen very often to the party in power.
Here's a thought: instead of being the opposition party, perhaps the Democrats should work towards developing a cohesive platform/agenda, and run on that. Running on hatred of Bush and saying "Bush is wrong" does not work, as the past several election cycles have shown.
As much as people hate Newt Gingrich, the Contract With America was a brilliant idea (and some would credit it with balancing the budget, since that was one of the contract's tennets, and the ensuing Republican-controlled legislature helped reign in Clinton's spending). If the Democrats came up with a similar, viable contract and ran on that platform, they may be able to regain control of the Legislature or the Executive branch. Unfortunately, if they continue to appease the far left base and attack one another mercilessly during the primaries, they stand little chance of winning in the general elections.
Yes - I am a conservative who is wishing the Democrats would actually devise a coherent platform and engage in constructive debate! :-)
Part Two
Date: 2006-02-02 09:13 pm (UTC)Every couple of weeks, we do a big shopping run. Well, really, it's once a month. Between then, we can do small pickups that are easy to carry home. I have a nice little insulation packet I made for my (small, college-size) backpack; it works great for cold goods.
Besides, cars, in my book, are for cargo. ^_^
No, but it's been suggested that I should. A neighbour (who is a professor emeritus of urban planning at the University of Washington) told me a couple of years ago that in one sentence I demonstrated more urban planning sense than the entire city council of Seattle. And, snarkiness aside, that's one of the few things they're halfway good at.
Again: my shiny metal ass he did. That would have floated an extra $2 TRILLION in debt above not reforming it, and he promised flowers and candy to everyone - particularly brokerage houses, who had the same position in his plan as health insurers had in Hillarycare.
Raise the retirement age one month per year up to 69. Scale benefits based on post-retirement income. Problem solved; core functionality of keeping the elderly out of poverty preserved. But that requires more working and less candy.
Heh. Don't fuck with the AARP. They're vicious bastards, they are.
, tied in correctly would have been exactly rightThose are orthogonal to the crisis. Energy isn't.And they'd have been right, because those latter issues weren't related to the attack.
I kind of disagree. I prefer inefficient government because it gets less done. Split government means economic prosperity because only those things everybody can stomach get passed, and that's a much smaller set. I'm for it.
Re: Part Two
Date: 2006-02-02 09:44 pm (UTC)We usually go in October. Quite comfortable and not crowded.
Raise the retirement age one month per year up to 69. Scale benefits based on post-retirement income. Problem solved; core functionality of keeping the elderly out of poverty preserved. But that requires more working and less candy.
Aye, but that will have a snowball's chance in hell of passing. Any time anyone mentions either raising the retirement age, increasing payroll taxes, or "cutting" benefits, people raise holy hell. The AARP and their ilk are a powerful contingent, and would fight it tooth and nail. Anyone looking to be re-elected would fight it tooth and nail. Baby boomers and current retirees would fight it tooth and nail.
I would add another change to your list: eliminate the stupid FICA cap, for Christ's sake! Stupidest. Thing. Ever.
Whenever we discuss retirement plans with our financial advisor, we never include Social Security in the mix. Since no one wants to address the issue, it will never be fixed, and we will never see a dime.
I prefer inefficient government because it gets less done.
Which is fine...provided nothing needs to get done.
Although he is an absolute blowhard, I have to agree with one thing Rush said many moons ago: there's nothing wrong with Congress not passing any laws during a year. Less laws or less spending == good thing.
What isn't a good thing is when partisan bickering stalls constructive debate and prevents the government from addressing pressing, dire issues.