[ClearCase_guy]

Like Cato the Elder, who ended every speech in the Roman senate, no matter what the primary topic was, with the closing statement "And Carthage must be destroyed", the Republicans should just say that "Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting this country and we need to address that issue."

Say it on TV about 5000 times in the next two years.

If George Bush had spent his last term talking about Fannie and Freddie and the Real estate crisis, saying: "Barney Frank says real estate loans are fine, but I say they will implode and plunge this country into a deep recession" -- if Bush had said that about 5000 times, I don't think we'd be hearing quite so much about Obama "inheriting a problem".

Social Security and Medicare are problems. Say it loud. Say it often.

[Bokababe]

Social Security and Medicare are problems. Say it loud. Say it often.

I agree, but the hard part with these programs is that you have many people on them who are too old to work and adjust to this new reality that they will have to pay for everything. They are stuck -- unable to pay for themselves now.

The first things that I would do with Social Security is to get everyone off of it who didn't pay into it. You've got old people from every country around the world who come here and immediately start collecting Social Security checks, even if they never paid a penny into it. You've got drug addicts who are collecting Social Security checks because they are qualified as "disabled". That's BS. I don't know what the proportion of those in these categories are, but I'd dump them and quick because they are the easiest targets that no one would give a crap about -- and that would be a beginning to "doing something".