C. Fredrick's State of Social Security and Iraq

I watched President Bush's State of the Union address tonight while on the treadmill.

Social Security
Here's the first line that made me chuckle:

I know that none of these reforms [to Social Security] would be easy. But we have to move ahead with courage and honesty, because our children's retirement security is more important than partisan politics.

Here we go again - promoting this complete myth that Social Security will go bankrupt because there are fewer younger workers paying into the system to support current retirees.

Just one problem Mr. President - as we've covered previously in a post about the NYT's Magazine article "A Question of Numbers", when Social Security was reformed in 1983 the actuaries took into account our aging demographics in their forecast. The real reason Social Security has a projected deficit today is because the actuaries have gotten more pessimistic. If you simply make the assumptions more realistic (since their using unecessarily pessimistic numbers) there isn't a problem at all.

In the end, we do need to deal with Social Security with courage AND HONESTY. Let's hope President Bush can start living up to his own words.

Iraq
I am more hopeful for Iraq than at anytime. Seeing more than half of the country turnout to elect their leaders on Sunday was amazing. We don't have that level of turnout in America (and we aren't faced with insurgents trying to kill us while we vote). The road ahead won't be easy - a government must be seated, gain legitmacy and govern; the country must be fully secured - but progress is being made. I know that we invaded Iraq to find WMD, but let's not forget that practically everyone in DC thought they would find them (many Democrats included). While it's hard to comprehend the cost, loss of life and debilitating injuries that resulted from the invasion, Iraqis are more free than they've been in decades.