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Even though his is the "founder" of American liberalism, FDR was somewhat prudent when he devised Social Security. He created a system that would provide supplemental retirement income for some people. The vast majority of Americans, however, were not expected to live long enough to collect Social Security benefits, or if they did it would only be for a few years. In the last seventy years we have seen medical advances which have pushed life expectancy decades beyond what it was in 1933, but the eligibility age has remained the same. A 65 year old who retires today and is in good health is likely to live twenty years or more. (and this includes 40% of the country in the next few decades as the baby boomers start to retire). And the advancements in medical science will push this even further -- imagine what will happen if cancer and Alzheimer's are cured. FDR may have been able to anticipate some of this, but he didn't, so now we are reaching a crisis stage where something must be done.

What Bush is proposing is to fix the major failing in Social Security, by ensuring that everyone gets to own the money they contribute. This is most important for middle class blacks (who the 'Rats claim to care so much about), the black male has a much lower life expectancy than white men. A average black male can work his entire life, contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus his employer's matching contributions) and retire at 65, but he is only going to live a few more years and his family will only get a few hundred dollars. Bush plans to change all of that, plus insure that the post-baby boomers have the chance to retire in comfort.

Even though his is the "founder" of American liberalism, FDR

That is a fallacy.

FDR nearly wiped out social spending in WW II. Truman and Eisenhower took social spending to a very low level as did JFK.

It was LBJ who was the architect of liberalism.

This crap that FDR is the father of liberalism is plain baseless. His program did not envision having 1000s of programs added on to it. Blame LBJ for American Marxism, not FDR. He is the one who warped Social Security into the monster it is today. LBJ is the one who initiated hundreds of social welfare programs.

As a % of total spending, FDR had social welfare down to 2%--REPEAT, just 2% of total spending in WW II. You know what it is today? 65% of total spending.

Anybody who blames FDR for American Marxism lacks facts.

I found a life expectancy table, which shows, that the life expectance in 1939-41 was 62.81 years! So it was easy to support the very few people, who lived beyond age 65.

From the same table, life expectancy in 2001 is 75, and in other places I have seen the early 80-s.

Bush is right, a system designed some 60 years ago needs to be updated to reflect today's realities.

Link to the table:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html