Is Bush all there?

Bush announced there is an unfunded $11 trillion liability in the Social Security program, but that he will not allow FICA taxes to be raised. He proposes instead to push Private accounts, which will take another $1-2 trillion from tax receipts. His Tax Cuts previously have made it more profitable for American Business to Import rather than Produce here, vastly decreasing FICA tax receipts while ruining the U.S. Trade balance. AP reports:

Non-petroleum import prices increased 0.7 percent last month after falling 0.1 percent in October, marking the largest increase since January's 0.8 percent gain. Over the last 12 months this series has risen 3.4 percent, the strongest annual gain since September 1995.

The price of petroleum product imports fell 2.6 percent after 11.6 percent gain in October for the largest decrease in over a year. On an annual basis, petroleum import costs are up 60.4 percent.

The Dollar is sliding, and will continue to slide with unfunded Federal spending and an American Trade deficit. Bush cannot be permitting this for American products to sell at cheaper price in
foreign markets, as the markets for American Products where they are competitive remain semi-totally saturated. I feel an impulse to mention We have a Trade coefficent less than 0.03, which is a measure of the likelihood of Trade expansion, where a coefficent of 0.05 or greater is necessary to increase Trade Exports in terms of real Product expansion in Sales, not simply Dollar increases.

The unfunded liability of the Social Security Fund is only going to increase, unless COLAs are eliminated from the system. This will rapidly erode the program goals of the system, which was assurance that Senior citizens will have enough to live on. Social Security Private Accounts will reduce FICA taxes substantially, creating a debt load which would not be incurred until 2040, if the system was left untouched. Debt Service in incurring the Debt now, rather than in 2040, will increase the unfunded liability by at least $400 billion. Most Economists agree Private Accounts will not gain sufficiently in total Value to even pay for the Debt Service on the incurred Debt: the Stock Markets are already overinflated with Dollars due to the tax advantages currently existent. Bush deficit spending with sale of Treasuries to foreign central banks is unsustainable even through the end of the next Presidential term. We talk about Nero fiddling here! lgl