Ideas and Images From the President’s Address

Re “The President Reloads,” editorial, Feb. 3: You state that “2018 is just when the fund starts paying out more than it takes in. It is not a crisis.” The fact that President Bush believes that now is the time to deal with a future financial train wreck is what is called leadership. What would you like to do? Put it off until it becomes an imminent crisis? This president continues to show his courage and convictions and his will to present solutions for the long-term financial health of America. I salute him.

Peter L. Rhein

Los Angeles

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The Social Security “debate” is being brought to us by the same sideshow that gave us “weapons of mass destruction” and similar great ideas: warning of big problems where none in fact exists. I can’t see one single reason to trust Bush or his “Chicken Little” administration on this issue. Seems to me that now that he’s taken care of the oil interests, he wants to create a windfall for the financial industry as well. And again at the expense of middle-class America.

John R. Trudeau

Newport Coast

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I’m a little puzzled. In his State of the Union speech, on Social Security, the president said: “We’ll make sure that your earnings are not eaten up by hidden Wall Street fees. We’ll make sure there are good options to protect your investments from sudden market swings on the eve of your retirement. We’ll make sure a personal account cannot be emptied out all at once, but rather paid out over time.” This sounds to me like what Social Security does now -- no fees, no sudden market swings, paid out over time -- just a steady, assured income for those who paid into it for their retirement. And if there is a shortfall of billions of dollars as the president said, and we spend trillions of dollars, by most estimates, to implement private accounts, wouldn’t it be better to use those trillions to fix Social Security?

John Otterness

San Pedro

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While we are at it, we might as well come up with another name for Social Security. Wouldn’t Individual Risk be more appropriate?

Paul Burns

Granada Hills

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The president said he would submit a budget to Congress that eliminates 150 government programs that don’t work. Here’s my first suggestion: the war on drugs. Uncountable billions in tax dollars have been wasted in the last 40 years, thrown into an act of prohibition that is an utter failure. People who want drugs are going to get them, and that is all she wrote. Save the money for something doable.

Bart Braverman

Los Angeles

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“Ownership society” is an oxymoron.

Scotty Wuerker

Palos Verdes Estates

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The Iraqi and Afghan women brought to represent the faces of democracy in Middle East [during the State of the Union address] belied the claim of respect for local cultures “as freedom advances” in these countries. It is such inadvertent acts that give the impression that advancement of freedom means advancement of Western values, and in turn feeds skepticism in the Muslim world about the intentions behind the rhetoric of freedom.

America should not give this impression of supporting modern Muslims if it is sincere in pursuing its dream of fostering democracy in the Muslim world.

Basheer A. Khan

Garden Grove

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Although I believe that Bush sank to new lows of hypocrisy, mendacity and bathos in his shameful use of the parents of a dead soldier during his State of the Union speech, he did show considerable restraint: He could have had all of the grieving parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters of the dead and mortally wounded American soldiers on display.

Then all of the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the Cabinet could have applauded them all, and shed a tear of vicarious grief, and perhaps a tear of thankfulness that they did not have to stand among the grieving. Perhaps next year, perhaps in a stadium.

Norman Palley

Culver City

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Following Bush’s speech, I was expecting a powerful Democratic rebuttal to his proposal to Republicanize Social Security by converting the New Deal into a Raw Deal. Unfortunately, the response by Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid was as compelling as a PBS pledge break.

Chase Webb

Branscomb, Calif.