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

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (681873)	5/10/2005 11:44:14 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

"The probability that our economy will grow in the next 50 years at the same rate that it did in the last 50 years is close to zero." Now who's selling America short??????? I think we'll exceed a lot of people's doomsday predictions (if we can reform our mess of a tax code!) We exceeded projections fairly consistently... so I'd guess the odds are a lot better then 'close to zero' (unless they keep destroying the future by pilling-on debts Argentina-style like they are now....) Remember also: the LAST 50 YEARS had several very serious recessions, nearly a decade of StagFlation, job destruction, industrial retrenchment, federal debt problems, etc., etc. It wasn't ALL a picnic! "The baby boom fueled the growth, it is now reaching retirement. That is what is fueling the Social Security crisis." What 'crisis'? Problem with most of the administrations scare-mongering on the issue is that they are USING TWO DIFFERENT SETS OF BOOKS in their public presentations. 1) They attempt to convince us of an on-coming 'crisis' by ASSUMING extremely low rates of national growth going forward. 2) But in presenting their 'privitazation' proposals as a supposed 'cure' for the system, they ASSUME MUCH HIGHER rates of national growth to predict that participants will get a better deal out of their proposed changes... instead of getting screwed. Which is it? High growth or low growth? Who knows, but they can't have it both ways, they have to use the same projections for both sides of their argument, or else the argument is just reduced to a flim-flam exercise. Meanwhile, we have two MUCH LARGER problems facing us: 1) Rising national debt levels (and interest costs on that debt, which are projected to EXCEED THE ANNUAL COSTS of both SS AND Medicare/Medicaid by 2042....) 2) Medicare/Medicaid which is ALREADY a much bigger fiscal funding problem then SS... and is about to take a serious turn for the worse just next year as new costs enter the system. Far too much waste/fraud/abuse and corporate welfare embedded into the Medicare/Medicaid system. So, why are the much LARGER PROBLEMS being totally ignored, while a more dubious one is trumpeted to the sky?