President Bush laid out the ways he believes he can improve the United States in his inaugural speech on Jan. 20.
If Bush’s first term is any indication of what to expect, perhaps America should pass on his offer and let him play golf for the next four years.
His domestic policies center around “reform” of four major areas: Social Security, taxes, health care and liability lawsuits.
While ensuring that Social Security survives is a goal everyone should strive for, it is not in such dire danger as President Bush wants us to think.
Social Security is expected to bring in more money in taxes than it spends until 2029, and it isn’t projected to completely run out money until 2049.
These projections are based on near worst-case scenarios. These projections include the assumption that the economy will indefinitely grow at only one-half of the average rate of economic growth. These scenarios also assume that immigration will stop. This is important because new working immigrants help increase the amount of payroll taxes the government raises.
Even if these projections come to pass, Social Security is projected to run a total combined deficit of $5 trillion by the year 2075.
In 1998, the government was projecting over $5 trillion in surpluses over the following 10 years. Had Bush pushed for policies that would have ensured that those surpluses came to pass, Social Security could have been completely paid for the next 70 years by the time Bush finished his second term in office.
However, Bush chose to cut taxes, costing at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years, as well as declaring a war that is costing us at least $100 billion a year.
Bush’s plan for Social Security could cost more than the potential problem itself. Bush’s plan is projected to cost at least $2 trillion over the next 10 years alone and isn’t projected to be fully implemented for 40 years.
Bush’s current plan also includes a cut in benefits of 25 percent for those of us attending college today. These cuts would continue to the point that children born today would only receive half of the money when they do retire that they would have gotten had they retired today.
Tax reform sounds appealing, but in reality it is shifting the tax burden from the upper class to the middle and lower classes.
The plans being talked about include a flat tax, which would result in a tax increase for most Americans, or a roughly 30 percent national sales tax to replace the income tax. There are no plans for an exemption for food, clothing or even medical care if a sales tax is implemented.
Medical savings accounts are another policy idea that sounds good but in practice won’t help anyone that it is supposed to help.
The plan would allow people to put money into an account, which could then be used to pay medical expenses in the future.
There are two fatal flaws to this idea.
The first flaw is the assumption that people who can’t afford insurance in the first place will put money into these accounts, even if they are given tax credits to do so.
The second flaw is that a person could easily have medical expenses that cost far more than what they have saved away in a medical savings account. While these accounts can help for some medical costs, their usefulness is still limited.
Finally, Bush supports medical liability reform, especially for malpractice lawsuits.
The theory is that this will lower medical costs, even though insurance only makes up about 3 percent of medical costs.
Preventing large settlements for malpractice lawsuits won’t stop malpractice from happening and will protect those who are guilty of malpractice. The best way to reduce malpractice payments is to cut down on malpractice. Bush has no plans to do this.
These are just a few examples of the twisted logic behind most of the Bush administration’s policies.

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