posted by Bob Clasen
Mr. President, Let's Share the Wealth
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: February 8, 2005
President Bush said he was open to other people's ideas on how to fix Social Security, so I hope he'll listen to mine.
My idea starts with a blunt political observation. Personal accounts - as they are currently envisioned - are going to be hard to pass. Every important Democrat opposes them. Jim McCrery, the Republican who is chairman of the House Social Security subcommittee, says the president's plan will have to fundamentally change if it is to have a chance.
So my idea is this: If the president's current version of personal accounts stalls, he should consider another version - one that is more likely to win broad support, and that achieves all the goals of an "ownership society."
The personal accounts I'm thinking of would be inspired by a proposal called KidSave, which was floating around in the late 1990's. KidSave wa...
by George Will
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If Sept. 11 had never happened -- if debate about domestic policy had not been drowned out by the roar of war -- the potential domestic ramifications of this election would give it unusual nation-shaping power. To understand why is to understand some of the Democratic rage about the specter of a second term for George W. Bush.
He has a multifaceted agenda for weakening crucial components of the Democratic Party, factions that depend on cosseting by the federal government. Consider trial lawyers and organized labor.
John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as running mate was a blunder, and not just because Kerry probably will lose Edwards's North Carolina. The Edwards selection ratifies a provocative fact: trial lawyers have become the Democrats' most important faction. This has energized small-business owners, the self-employed, doctors and others who worry that they live one lawsuit away from ruin. Such people, now arous...
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by Ralph Peters New York Post
November 11, 2004 -- IN the Second Battle of Fallujah, military operations are ahead of schedule. Our casualties have been blessedly light. The terrorists who haven't fled are being killed by the hundreds. Our troops will soon achieve their goal of eliminating Iraq's key safe haven for terrorists.
Our Marines and soldiers have carried the ball inside the 10-yard line. The media's response? Move the goalposts.
The legions of pundits ("Will talk for food") now suggest that a win in Fallujah will be meaningless because we failed to kill or capture the terrorist leadership, because some of the thugs ran away and because Fallujah won't resemble Darien, Conn., by next Sunday.
On Tuesday, as our troops handily pierced the defenses terrorists had spent months erecting, The New York Times carried two front-page stories implying that our forces were facing possible defeat. The Times' military analysis...
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