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Show ee, Al4 The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Friday, March 9, 2001 Bush’s Latest Bout With ‘Fuzzy Math’ meihe President has suffered a relapse of ses Marie Cocco arithmetic. ‘The sales pitch for Bush’s tax cut relies on the mythology that we can have it all — @ gusher of tax cuts, more spending for programs and record-breaking reduction in the national debt, too. His promotion of private savings accounts to replace Social Security relies on an even more powerful myth: Ose So ene here ee declared. “Everyone in this chamber Kowa inet Social Secs See to fully fund their retirement. And have only a couple of years t got prepared.” —which wouldlove to get its hands on the money — that turning the program over to stockbrokers is its only salvation. The fearmonger-in-chief is now president. This means manypeople believe him without question. They shouldn't. Start with this bold assertion from Bush’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week: “Seven years from now, the baby boom generation will begin to claim Social Security benefits,” he OK. So if you're 58, what exactly is goyO aeeee3? Absolutely nothing. Except thatSilSecurity wil be ready to pay you precisely the benefit you've been promised. According to the Social Security trustees’latest report on the health ofthe fund, the system has enough money to pay currently promised benefits until 2037. By thattime, the oldest baby boomers will be 91 and will have received full benefits for some 26 years. The very youngest boomers, people born as late as 1964, will fully funded. It’s not true calamity lurks in “a couple of years.” Now for Bush’s assertion that without a “stark choice” between a “drastic rise in Perearco i retstenentt eran dos shed Gat Gitotk Hisga, roll taxes. According there recommended by Alan Greenspan in 1983, the tax changes amounted to about 3 per- But not so radical as the alternative’ Bush proposes: to have young workers pay’ benefits? When the oldest boomers are in their 90s and the youngest nearing 90, benefits would have to be cut by about 30 percentifabsolutely nothing were done to the system and the economygrew as dismally as the trustees predict. So that is radical, if in fact Congress would allow it. nearing retirement and simultaneouslyto build up their own accounts.It is this transition cost that perplexes most analysts who push privatizationofSocial Security. cent. And how about the “radical cut” in Decide for yourself whether a tax hike ofless than 2 percentqualifies as “drastic.” A little history is in order: When Social Security was last “rescued” along the lines Bush doesn’t evenlet on thatthis prob- Jem exists. That would destroy the myth: Drilling for Cheap Oil Tops Bush Administration Energy Policy pee fe Oe See cineoe BY ROBERT RENO NEWSDAY The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress have served notice that oil — drilling for it, pumping it, burning more of it, keeping it cheap so we can afford more of it — will be the chief imp2rative of their energy policies. Whatdid we expect? We’vejust elected a couple ofoil men presidentandvice president. The petroleum industry has a valid claim to the political spoils. The people have spoken —orratherfivejustices ofthe U.S. Supreme Court have ruled, which, while not the same thing, still trumps Al Gore’s clear victory in the popular vote. Meanwhile, evidence mounts that the earth is aboutto get 10 degrees hotter. This confluence ofpolitical and climatic events has all the makings ofa policy disaster. If President Bush’s tax cut is everything bad they say aboutit, it will be a trivial event compared with the other mistake we are about to make. It will be a horse race consequences will be more rising salt water, we could build ugly levies that would block the view and devalue some of the nation’s most expensive oceanfrontreal estate. Weknow that getting hysterical about something rarely helps. But we may have reached a point where getting hysterical is the only prudent course if that’s whatit takes to get the attentionofatleast the one nation which, with only 5 percentof the world’s population, produces one-fourth of all its emissions. That wouldbe the United States. if the Republican answer to this threat is any guide, we're in trouble. Sen. Frank Murkowski of Alaska, who may soon be choking on tundra gas, introduced a 300page energy bill that sends a loud pumpmore, burn-more message. He’s i of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and besides opening up the Arctic reserves, he’d showerthe industry with tax breaks to promote oil and gas production. Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary, called it “a very good start.” I supposed it is — in the direction ofdisaster. There's moreto this lip gloss than meets the eye. Origins introduces Liquid Lip Color. Whatyousee is super-high shine and incrediblecolor. But whatyou getis a whole lot more. Rich Rice Bran Oil pampers. Aloe and Vitamin E soothe and smooth. And icy-cool Mintleaves your lips with a refreshing zing. Choose from a rainbow of 10 gotta-have hues from red hot red and coolcoral to pretty pinks and glittery golds. And don’t forget to discover the rest of Origins 42 sensuous new shades for eyes, cheeks and lips. Right now, make an appointment and take homea full-size Lasting Lip Color in our sensational Transforming Lip Glaze Vernit pour metamorphoser res tevres whether earth in ice 10,000 feet deep. Ice covered Europe as far south as Kiev. What are now OAs forclimate change, it requires co- the cities of New York, Cincinnati and St. lossal stupidity to ignore evidence itis al- Louis were buried under ice. ready happening and that the burning of Now earth could be facing a similar and fossil fuels has something to do with it. much more sudden temperature change in There’s nothing as reliable as a DNAtest the opposite direction. Whatis left of its to prove that emissions alone are causing glaciers is melting fast. If this continues it climate change but we do know they foul__ could put much of the globe’s low-lying the air because on some smoggy days we ~Yand areas, wholenations, vast tracts of can look out the window and see it. A sim- Florida, under water in thelifetimes ofour ple four-cylinder motorcar parked run- grandchildren. Soon we'll have to rent a ning in a closed garage is an experiment movie to see the very snows of! most Americans can easily perform them- because it has lost 82 percentof its ice cap selves. No, don’t sit in the car until you since 1912, a yard’s thickness of it in the pass out. Just come back and check in a past year alone. Ice at the North Pole is few minutes and you'll get a nauseating now 40 perccat thinner than in 1950. Agwhiff of what is happening to the earth’s gravating this process, vast tundras may atmosphere as millions ofexhausts, power soon defrost and decay, pumping more ants, furnaces and smokestacks belch greenhouse gases into air already thick stuff into its finite space at an ever inwith man-made emissions. creasing rate. The fatalist approach, I suppose, is to By someestimates, it took an average turn up the air conditioning and keep temperature change ofless than 10 degrees burning all the coal,oil and gas we need to to produce thelast ice age. 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