By Commentary By Adam Collins
“Hi, I’m George. Fine car, eh? You know, I can put you in that car for less that $200 a month. Go ahead and get in! Want to take it for a test drive?”
This is the George Bush that Louisville saw on March 10: George Bush the salesman. He visited the Kentucky Center on a 60-day, 60-city tour in which he was pitching his Social Security plan, and Louisville saw one helluva salesman.
Bush sat comfortably on his stool, jacket unbuttoned, making a number of self-deprecating remarks throughout his half-hour “dialogue.” He was joined by a group of “seniors,” two grandfathers currently collecting Social Security benefits and their granddaughters, both of whom are college seniors.
But this dialogue, as Bush called it on a number of occasions, wasn’t much of a dialogue at all. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a dialogue is “a conversation between two or more parties.” In Bush’s “dialogue,” 99 percent of the conversing was done by one party, and I’ll give you three guesses as to which one.
Each of the four guests on stage with the president was given the opportunity to discuss his or her opinion on the president’s Social Security plan. Remarkably, none had any objections to the plan and none had any questions to ask of the president.
Although the event lasted just over a half an hour, the president was vague and offered few details. He mentioned a number of the plan’s basics, and offered a structural guideline to his proposal, but he failed to answer any questions that have arisen in recent weeks.
There was no dialogue regarding the plan’s cost, which some estimates say will cost $100 billion dollars annually for the first 10 years of the plan. Varying effects on poor, middle-class and upper-class individuals were not mentioned in the dialogue, either.
Even so, Bush’s plan is one of the few programs currently being debated, and it will affect those in our generation the most. And although the president’s sales pitch on Thursday would put a used car salesman to shame, it is important to listen to the discussion on the issue with an open mind.
Ideally, more details will be made available so the public can get a better understanding of just what this landmark proposal would mean for the nation. Until then, buyer beware.
Adam Collins is a sophomore pursuing a Political Science major, and is a columnist for The Louisville Cardinal. E-mail him at: news@louisvillecardinal.com.
