hey all. so i'm here with your state of the union spin. i have to say i got whipped around a lot emotionally during the speech - at times i didn't really know what was going on. first - i hate bush - no way around it. however, i do think social security is in a lot of trouble, and as much as it pains me to say it (and it pains me A LOT) i have to give bush some credit for actually wanting to deal with. it is a political hot plate that no one wants to touch and therefore will never get fixed. politicians can't just keep passing that shit down - it's not fair. the big problem is that people in government, and most of their constituents don't give a damn about social security starting to waffle in a few years - cause they'll be reaping benefits at that time and the poor suckers like me will be losing half their paychecks to it. and not to worry, i won't see a dime of social security - but i've already put thousands into it since i was 16. did you know that more people my age believe in UFOs than social security? and i have to say i'm one of them. but past all that, i do not think private accounts are the answer - it's a neat idea - but it's not how social security is set up to work. i pay in now for people who are old now, and when i'm old some other chumps will be paying for me. which is all fine and dandy - as long we other chumps are still there - and thanks to the baby boom the mathematics don't quite add up. what we need to do is raise the retirement age. and that sucks. but when you look at when social security was started - back in FDR's day (the senate dems are holding an event at the FDR memorial today in protest of bush's plan - sometimes being in DC makes you feel a little dirty) the retirement age was 65, and the average life expectancy was 62! think about that . . . things have changed a little since then. lord knows i don't want to work until i'm 70 (or even until i'm 30!) but there is no way we can afford to start paying everyone over 65 without a HUGE increase in the social security payments. and maybe we need a little of both - but the status quo is NOT ok. however, we would not be in this position of having a crisis if someone (not to name names, but it starts with a "b" and ends with a "ush") hadn't blown our entire surplus in 2000, and launched us into a huge amount of debt. but i guess he wants us to just forget about that. al gore's lockbox isn't looking so stupid anymore, now is it?

so i think that democrats need to grow some balls and take this issue on - whether we like it or not. the future of our party (me, and all the other kids like me) are going to be pretty pissed off if they don't start paying attention to us eventually. but also, kids like me need to start voting so they are forced to pay attention to us - but that's a whole other issue.

and another thing, when did it become ok to boo at a state of the union? am i too young, or has that never happened before? yes, yes, we know the real crisis won't hit until 2056, and bush said 2042 - but i didn't realize old white men still had the ability to shout at power in them. i can't decide if it heartened me to seem them so worked up about it, or saddened that all we could do was shout . .

but really - just when i was starting to think, ok, bush may be crazy, but at least he has the guts to deal with social security, he quickly reminds me why he is the devil. he brought up that stupid constitutional amendment to protect marriage again (and by the way, there seems ot be some sort of campaign in DC for this - i am now confronted with huge posters of a bride and groom with phrases like "marriage works" and "married people make more money" and "kids with married parents are happier" and "married people are better than single people" and "married people are in better shape" "married people live longer" "married people don't hate themselves" "single people suck" and so on) - marriage is between two people who love eachother - and that is all. i don't really think us heterosexuals with our 50% divorce rate can really tell anybody else how or how not to have a successful marriage.

and another thing, no child left behind is a piece of crap. it's a stupid idea and it's a stupid idea they never funded. requiring cash-strapped public schools to perform at a certain level and threatening to close them if they don't and then not giving them any funding to achieve those levels is just plain dumb. and i know that even though i went to a public school in california, which has one of the lowest education budgets in the country. someone in the government with all their fancy private schools must have figured it out by now . . .

ok, well i think those are all my thoughts for now - obviously i had a lot of them. i'm now going to go crawl in a hole and only come out once democrats figure out how to talk on tv about issues that matter. when is harry reid up for re-election again?