Foot in Mouth Dz

Bush spoke after touring the Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, W.Va., about the $1.7 trillion in Treasury bonds that make up the trust fund...

W: "There is no trust fund -- just IOUs that I saw firsthand. Imagine, the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet."


14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Section 4: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

In other words, these "IOUs" not only have the backing of the US Government, but are binding under the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution says quite clearly that public debt shall not be questioned yet there is Bush doing just that, in order to push the plan/non-plan scheme of piratizing Social Security. Same old scare tactic. When creating a backing for an invasion into Iraq he used the threat of WMD and then the supposed collusion with Al Queda. The question becomes, does the American public become intimidated into submission once more.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi's has rightly called Bush to task over this staggering statement, saying "This is the first time that a President of the United States has declared that we, the United States Government, will not put the full faith and credit of the federal government behind the Social Security trust fund. What this President is saying is, we have two kinds of debt. Let's see how we get the debt first. It is in deficit spending, so we have to go borrow in order to keep the government going."

That is a decent statement, but this is not just about the imprudence of Bush's words, or the bad idea it is for finical markets, politically, etc. but that what he is saying is directly un-Constitutional, and the basic premise behind them and what he is in essence suggesting are directly un-Constitutional.