Representative John Bohner - R-Ohio, House Minority Leader - announced yesterday a plan to cut Social Security and raise the retirement age to 70. Now, this is not a new idea, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. discussed a similar plan last month. For the record, I would support this with a few provisions.
However; there's a problem with Rep. Bohner's plan: He wants to use the money to pay for the war in Afghanistan. (I've been trying to find an exact quote, but I can't.)
Social Security money should NEVER be used for anything in the regular budget. And, that's the problem. Social Security used to have enough money to last a very long time without making many changes. However; our government - Republicans & Democrats - have been dipping into the Social Security program to pay for other programs and to help lower the deficit. The time to touch Social Security for anything other than what it is intended to be is over. If we're going to save it, then let's save it right. Leave the money saved by spending cuts and raising the retirement age to 70 in Social Security. Otherwise, we'll just have bigger problems later on.
What do you think?
God Bless
Top Of My Head
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 27, 2008
Charlie Wilson's War
If you have not seen Charlie Wilson's War, stop reading. I don't want to have someone find out the ending when they didn't want to.
I just now finished watching Charlie Wilson's War. It was an entertaining movie and told a story I didn't know a lot about. I knew the Soviet's invaded Afghanistan and I knew we helped throw them out, but I didn't know how it was done. I liked the movie, but I felt that the ads for it played up much more humor than what was present.
The thing that kept running through my mind was once we kicked out the Soviets, we left room for the Taliban, which led to the terrorists that flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This thought bothered me, because I was thinking should we really be idolizing Charlie Wilson and his CIA pal, the late Gust L. Avrakotos, knowing what we do now?
And then the movie came to the end and you see Charlie struggling -- and failing -- to obtain funding to rebuild the Afghan schools. We helped kick the Soviets out, but we didn't follow through and help the Afghan put their nation back together again. We did nothing. It wasn't on the radar, it wasn't important.
Which leads me to my next thought: What are we going to do in Iraq? Are we really just going to pull out our troops and leave the country devastated? Are we going to finish what we start and rebuild the nation? While we're all fighting over here about the war in Iraq, there are people in Iraq who don't have clean water. And, the reason they don't have clean water is because we wanted to get Saddam Hussein.
So, what are we going to do? Pull out prematurely? Or, fix up the country and perhaps stop the next generation of terrorists?
Something to think about.
God Bless
I just now finished watching Charlie Wilson's War. It was an entertaining movie and told a story I didn't know a lot about. I knew the Soviet's invaded Afghanistan and I knew we helped throw them out, but I didn't know how it was done. I liked the movie, but I felt that the ads for it played up much more humor than what was present.
The thing that kept running through my mind was once we kicked out the Soviets, we left room for the Taliban, which led to the terrorists that flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This thought bothered me, because I was thinking should we really be idolizing Charlie Wilson and his CIA pal, the late Gust L. Avrakotos, knowing what we do now?
And then the movie came to the end and you see Charlie struggling -- and failing -- to obtain funding to rebuild the Afghan schools. We helped kick the Soviets out, but we didn't follow through and help the Afghan put their nation back together again. We did nothing. It wasn't on the radar, it wasn't important.
Which leads me to my next thought: What are we going to do in Iraq? Are we really just going to pull out our troops and leave the country devastated? Are we going to finish what we start and rebuild the nation? While we're all fighting over here about the war in Iraq, there are people in Iraq who don't have clean water. And, the reason they don't have clean water is because we wanted to get Saddam Hussein.
So, what are we going to do? Pull out prematurely? Or, fix up the country and perhaps stop the next generation of terrorists?
Something to think about.
God Bless
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