Why punish the upper 2% rich with more taxes than the poor - across the board - indiscriminately? Sure, some rich oppressthe poor and take advantage of them as described in the New Testament book of James. But some rich got rich NOT merely because of inheritance but rather because they were enterprising, disciplined, wise, and hardworking...compared to some poor who waste themselves with addictions and other manifestationgs of what the New Testament calls 'works of the flesh.'

Bush indicates he wants Americans to be free against paying ALL the F.I.C.A. (Social Security) Tax Withheld out of their paychecks and instead be free (or apply) to 'invest' [by themselves] in stocks/bonds/annuity Retirement Accounts handled by wealth-acquisition-by-surprise-technicalities government or non-government money managers. [Perhaps Bush would also like to require malpractice lawyers (like Edwards), pharmaceutical companies, pharmacists, and medical insurers - along with the democrat Judiciary Committee - to fund National Health Insurance for all Christian Americans (SS/IRS-style?)]

Kerry implies a strong NO! to such privatization of Social Security which (his advisors contend) would deplete the limited SS Trust-Fund surplus even more...but rather continue to require workers to have all of their F.I.C.A. Withholding withdrawn from their paychecks for retiring (at a non-changing retirement age) with sufficiently-funded Social Security checks (albeit under the continuing burdensome and confusing IRS taxation scheme).

Questions are raised.

- Must people be, in effect, forced by government to save for their government-apportioned retirement?
- Must road and highway vehicles be forced to have license plates, tabs, and insurance?
- Must lookalike football players wear large 2-digit numbers on their backs to differentiate themselves and be differentiated?
- Must businesses and employers be forced to participate in the IRS Form W-4 plus F.I.C.A. wage allocations and restrictions?
- Must employees declare wage amounts from the businesses and employers they work for who have bound themselves to the IRS and FICA declaration and tax structure?
- Can non-declared non-registered income and gifts be outside the knowedge and reach of the I.R.S. and F.I.C.A.?

Most people:

(1) do not know how to invest in stocks, bonds, annuities, etc.
(2) do not want to learn how to become investment gurus
(3) realize that financial investment brokers and involvement with such would make life complicated, uncertain, and worrisome
(4) discern that investment principals are not FDIC insured, and so they could easily lose all they invested in one very bad day on Wall Street
(5) consider risky investing on par with odds-against-them casino gaming and powerball gambling
(6) do not understand why the government themselves cannot better invest the FICA Withholding with FDIC-insured security.

The answer to the projected and predicted Social Security Trust Fund depletion is NOT:

a) employing more people to pay into the IRS/FICA boondoggle
b) cutting Social Security benefits
c) raising the retirement age
d) raising FICA Withholding Tax amounts on paychecks.

THE answer INSTEAD is: Stop raiding the money in the Social Security Trust Fund by allowing it to be siphoned off to wasteful government-spending pork-barrel projects, giveaways, grants, subsidies, etc. to illegal aliens, welfare-fraud freeloaders, sleeper-cell terrorists, etc.