President bush's economic conference last week was a great show-if you like watching sales meetings. The conference, billed by the White House as a "frank discussion" about the president's economic program, was really a two-day infomercial that was short on "info," long on "mercial." Attendees, who had been screened by the White House, applauded at all the right places. Bush closed the conference with a dire warning about Social Security. "The longer we wait," he said, "the more expensive the solution becomes. The crisis is now." I wasn't invited to the meeting, of course. But if I'd had a shot at the microphone, I'd have asked Bush why he thought Social Security was a crisis requiring immediate action but was ignoring a far larger and more immediate problem. To wit: the one he created a year ago when he pushed a Medicare prescription-drug plan through Congress without providing money to pay for it.
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