Issue date: 3/2/05 Section: Opinion

George W. Bush's commitment to help lower the national debt is nothing more than a smoke screen to appease voter concerns. Bush enthusiastically said that he is going to help reduce the national deficit, yet his actions in office have only made matters worse.

On Valentine's Day 2005, Bush stood before congress and asked for an additional $82 billion to continue funding the U.S. war efforts. This large request is not included in his "balanced" budget that he submitted, yet congress will most likely approve the amount, which is needed to give our troops the necessities to continue to do their jobs.

Senior Adrianne Simon, a child development major at Sacramento State, is like many other students who know little about the current status of the national debt that is currently well over $7.6 trillion, according to the Department of the Treasury. She did, however, feel it was ridiculous that an additional $82 billion was being proposed for the war, but gave her full support.

"If it's the deficit or money to help those that are protecting us, give to those that are protecting us," she said.

According to CNN.com, including the recently proposed funds for war efforts, the total amount of money spent to conduct the war on terror is more than $300 billion. Bush's request for more money for the war should only be satisfied because it will help protect our brave men and women fighting overseas.

To put this request for $82 billion in perspective, only $56 billion has been earmarked in the 2006 budget for educational purposes. I find it a sad day in America when we desire to spend more money killing than providing our children with the education and attention they so desperately need.

This is not the first time that Bush has negatively impacted the deficit, as his tax cuts have done nothing to help reduce the national debt; but on the plus side, the extra couple of bucks have really made my life so much better.

James Cox, a government professor at Sac State, is more worried about the impact that Bush's new Social Security plan will have on the deficit. The new plan proposes to replace the present form of Social Security with a program where people are given an individual investment account to fund their retirement.

"His proposal for Social Security will do nothing to help the deficit in the short term," Cox said. "People overlook the huge transition costs."

These transition costs, which are estimated to be over $1 trillion dollars during the next 10 years, will directly impact the national deficit, not to mention the additional costs required to conclude the current Social Security program. The estimate is slightly skewed, however, as the implementation of the new Social Security program would not go into effect until the year 2009; these cost projections are based on 2005 dollars, making them sound less severe.

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, said last week that he supports Bush's plan to replace Social Security with individual investment accounts, but he fears that it could lead to trillions of dollars in government borrowing in upcoming decades. Greenspan agrees with democrats that the private investment accounts would not solve Social Security's long-term financial woes or significantly improve the amount of money paid out by the program.

"If you're going to move to private accounts, which I approve of, I think you have to do it in a cautious, gradual way," Greenspan said.

It is clear that Social Security is unacceptable in its present form, yet most other options also seem bleak. Besides private investment accounts, alternative options include raising taxes to support Social Security, which would result in the largest tax increase ever, or cutting benefits by nearly one-third, rendering Social Security essentially useless.

So does America have hope of ever getting rid of its national deficit? I think we need to do more than just commit to fixing the national deficit, as the president has; we need to make sacrifices to achieve this goal. Undoing Bush's tax cuts and committing the funds to reducing the deficit, handing over our war commitments to the U.N. and finding a reasonable alternative for Social Security are great places to start.

Andrew Stewart can be reached at opinion@statehornet.com

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