Are slashing benefits or raising taxes really the only ways to keep Social Security in the black in the 21st century? During a recent appearance before Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that stronger economic growth won't do the trick. As Bernanke put it then:
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings presented a proposal today for a reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act that she says would help address the original law's perceived weaknesses: its lack of support for failing schools and its failure to erase persistent achievement gaps among older students. In today's press conference, she affirmed President Bush's suggestion in last night's State of the Union address that his upcoming budget will include more money for education reform–including, she says, more money for high schools, which now receive a minority of federal funds. She did not say how much the funding would increase.
AP - Government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus Thursday, battering each other with sticks, stones and even furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon's political crisis. At least two people were reported killed.
AP - Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.
Insurgents killed at least 32 people in Baghdad today, hours after Prime Minister al-Maliki promised that an upcoming U.S.-Iraq security sweep would pursue militants wherever they were hiding. "No school, house, mosque or husseiniya [Shiite mosques] will be out of reach," he said.