Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Little Joe who wrote (132695)	3/21/2001 7:50:43 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Not always with all that "skill and experience" in Washington we have a social security system that won't be able to provide benefits. Yeah, that's true. The pyramid scheme behind social security was a bone-headed idea from the get-go. And then there's the question of whether the Federal government should have gotten into the insurance/annuity business at all. But the skilled and experienced people have managed to extend social security's life a number of times over the years by raising the retirement age, for example, or partitioning its funds. You're right that they haven't fixed it, but they have mitigated the problem and made it last a little longer. We can't know how alternate paths might have played out. Unskilled and inexperienced might have done better or they might have done worse. Let me give you a small example of why I think fresh faces might do worse. There's a new administration in town right now. Like every new administration, they have a stack of new initiatives. Many are the same hackneyed "new" initiatives that the last bunch had--and the bunch before them. Two of the initiatives on the current list are flattening and merit pay for the bureaucracy. Both have been raised before. Both have been done before. Both sound great like mom and apple pie. Those with "experience" know they aren't workable. But the newbies keep bringing them up like they're novel ideas. Waste of everyone's time and energy and the taxpayers' money to put effort into things that only a newbie would bring up. I'd be all for cleaning house in Congress and bringing in fresh blood if we could give them a fresh start by changing enough of the culture and ground rules. But bringing new people into the same broken system just results in more frustration, disillusionment, and wasted effort. IMO. Karen