Help Choose Final Bush/Kerry/Nader Youth Voter Questions

Quite a few of the submitted questions were generated by Slashdot readers, and your moderations and comments helped select the 25 semi-finalists. There's only one step remaining in the process: Voting on the the final 12 questions that will be submitted to the candidates, which must be done on the New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate site by noon Eastern Time on October 5. Note that Slashdot readers are the only members of the moderation panel providing "...nominations from an entire community." We'll post the answers from Bush, Kerry, and Nader (who was added after the process began) on October 12.

The Second Coming

[Anonymous Cowdog]

James Watt, President Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, was quoted in the Washington Post in 1981 as saying "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."

Please tell the young voters what your beliefs regarding the Second Coming are, and how those beliefs influence your choices on long-term policy matters such as energy, the environment, and foreign relations.

Re:What are these questions?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Maybe the people asking the questions -- hard-working young people who don't live in their parents' basements and have real concerns about the future -- have a reason for being accusatory toward Bush.

Did you even consider that, or do you just automatically assume that anything that doesn't favor your guy is "biased"?

Re:Only 12 questions?

[ConceptJunkie]

Don't blame me, I'm voting for Bush.

Neither candidate is proposing something to prevent the collapse of Social Secuirty, but at least Bush is talking about investing some of the Social Security payroll tax (i.e., the additional 15% income tax you and I will never see back) to help prolong it. All the Democrats want to do is back out on the original SS promise by means-testing payouts. Forcing me to invest a sixth of my salary for my retirement for an expected cumulative interest rate of 1-2% per annum sucks*. Knowing that if I invest wisely I won't even get that doubly sucks.

If your SS funds were invested in an indexed fund, there is no 40-year period since SS was created that the fund would not have paid better than SS. Citizens go to jail for Ponzi scheme, but like many things, what's illegal for us is S.O.P. for the government.

* Yes, I know, it's about half of 15%, but if you think the matching amount your employer takes out doesn't come out of your potential salary, you're dreaming