There are 9 solutions to solve the Social Security faux "crisis" in today's Issues section of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. None of them are George W.'s and they all work. I like the first one the best, but the last one is appealing too. It's clear there is no "crisis" whatsoever. W. simply wants to be known as the man who destroyed the new deal.

I especially liked the opinion I read on B2 that said:

The real crisis is that the rest of the government stole the trust fund, spent it, and because of Bush's tax cuts won't be able to pay it back. Or pretty soon, do much of anything else. On paper, saving Social Security is easy. A mere 7% increase in payroll tax revenues would allow the trust fund to pay promised benefits all the way through 2075. Simply boosting the 6.2% Social Security tax rate on workers and employers to 6.65 % would do the trick. So would raising the earnings cap on Social Security taxes from $90,000 to $175,000. [Robert S. McIntyre, Knight Rider].

How can a government reduce taxes enormously on it's richest citizens, depleating the treasury's coffers and then exclaim in surprise, "Oh my, there just isn't enough money for all these government programs so we'll just have to cut program staff and benefits." How can 51% of the nation not see what a shady deal this is. Oh right. They actually see that the emperor has no clothes, but they get fringe benefits from the emperor that they really like: support for capital punishment, support for withdrawal of abortion rights, support for government subsidized religious schools and organizations, support for withdrawal of civil liberties from minorities, (less for them means more for us right? What stupid logic. Duke McCall said in a convocation at Alumni Chapel one day: "The answer is not to divide the pie in different proportions. The answer is to make more pie."), support for unfairly low taxation of the wealthiest Americans (don't fool yourself buddy, they pay less taxes than you do!)

In order to keep their benefits, they nod at the emperor and swear that his clothes are exactly like whatever he says they are like. They use his words, never deviating from his text. (How could they elaborate, describe, embellish, or interpret when they can't actually see the clothes (because of course, there are no clothes)). This explains their ritual chanting of mantras at every level, national media, state government, local politicians, and down to the guy sitting across the table from you. There is nothing but the mantra.