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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

> Steltzer makes sense---not one of the "deficits don't matter" 
> pseudoconservatives at the Weekly Standard
> Social Security Snares & Delusions
> From the January 17, 2005 issue: How not to squander political capital.
> by Irwin M. Stelzer
> 01/17/2005, Volume 010, Issue 17

He makes a great deal of sense. Alas, he will gain little audience. He is 
far too open-minded.

Social Security reform is the knee-jerk attention getter. It pulls 
attention away from where it should be, getting the debits and credits of 
government under control. SS is but one, and far from the largest, 
expenditures. As Stelzer points out, Medicare is a far larger problem and 
Bush made it even worse. Bob Dole's obstructionism has come back to haunt 
the Republicans, with whom Clinton was willing to work on health care. With 
no reform accomplished when it could have been done more easily, health 
care has become inordinately expensive with quality that is behind other 
countries. But it is too big a problem for Bush; it will await greater pain 
and greater presidents.