Point-Counterpoint: 2007 State of the Union Address (Pt. 2 of 2)
Bush can't please everyone, but he attempts to anyway
Adam Holtz and William Mulgrew
Issue date: 1/26/07 Section: Ed-Op
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The niceties that President Bush displayed by addressing the first woman Speaker of the House were underscored by something bigger: He spoke to a divided Congress representing a divided country in his State of the Union Address. While most conservatives advocate states' rights, Bush's speech reveals his ad-hoc federalist mentality. He can please neither the right nor the left.
Bush paid lip service to conservatives when he called for balancing the budget, reducing the federal deficit over the next five years, and cutting the $18 billion in earmarks spent in the last year by half. Our question is, why half? Why not cut all earmarks? A better question should be, whose half - the Republican half or the Democrat half? For conservatives, it's all or nothing.
With stealth, he asked Congress to "save Social Security" without saying the word "privatization." He said Congress should act, or else future generations would be left with three "bad" options: huge tax increases, huge deficits or fewer benefits. By definition, privatization is the only option left. We wonder how many people read between the lines.
The president called for health savings accounts, which kept the hands of Democrats firmly in their laps. The beauty of health savings accounts is that they allow Americans to deduct a portion of their taxes when they put money aside for their health care needs. It gives people an incentive to save on their own. Employers and others may donate to an individual's account as well. These accounts would follow people whether they're employed or not, taking out a good chunk of the uninsured by enabling Americans to remain insured even when they're between jobs.
But letting citizens deduct from their payroll tax instead of their income tax is puzzling. The payroll tax goes to Social Security. How on earth does the president hope to privatize Social Security when the payroll tax is used for other purposes?
For those of you who believe that socialized medicine is in the best interest of Americans, we challenge you to do some research and realize its immense problems. It strikes us as odd that, while Canada and Sweden are moving away from universal higher costs and waiting lists and allowing private health clinics, the Democrats would want to be more like them.
Bush paid lip service to conservatives when he called for balancing the budget, reducing the federal deficit over the next five years, and cutting the $18 billion in earmarks spent in the last year by half. Our question is, why half? Why not cut all earmarks? A better question should be, whose half - the Republican half or the Democrat half? For conservatives, it's all or nothing.
With stealth, he asked Congress to "save Social Security" without saying the word "privatization." He said Congress should act, or else future generations would be left with three "bad" options: huge tax increases, huge deficits or fewer benefits. By definition, privatization is the only option left. We wonder how many people read between the lines.
The president called for health savings accounts, which kept the hands of Democrats firmly in their laps. The beauty of health savings accounts is that they allow Americans to deduct a portion of their taxes when they put money aside for their health care needs. It gives people an incentive to save on their own. Employers and others may donate to an individual's account as well. These accounts would follow people whether they're employed or not, taking out a good chunk of the uninsured by enabling Americans to remain insured even when they're between jobs.
But letting citizens deduct from their payroll tax instead of their income tax is puzzling. The payroll tax goes to Social Security. How on earth does the president hope to privatize Social Security when the payroll tax is used for other purposes?
For those of you who believe that socialized medicine is in the best interest of Americans, we challenge you to do some research and realize its immense problems. It strikes us as odd that, while Canada and Sweden are moving away from universal higher costs and waiting lists and allowing private health clinics, the Democrats would want to be more like them.
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