Aliens Among Us
From watching Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly for the past few weeks(mostly Lou), I've heard about the twenty million or so illegal aliens who come into our country. Some say we need them to do the jobs that Americans won't do. Others say that they are a drain on our domestic and social progams. Are we simply being Mexico's nanny for economic reasons, or is our adminstration and federal government at large being AWOL in regards to protecting our lives? Regardless of what side you're on, the fact remains we have a real problem with our border security. What should and can individuals do about it, and what should our leaders do about it?

What is the simplest way to go?
Topic: Social Security
Columnist John Harwood(about 2 months ago)talked to Bob Ball, who used to run the Social Security Administration. Bob's solution to fixing the solvency problem with Social Security is as follows: "gradually increase the amount of wage income subject to payroll taxes; trim the cost-of-living index used to adjust benefits for inflation; bring state and local government employees fully into the system; dedicate a residual estate tax to the system; slightly increase the payroll tax rate."
What do you think?

Debt & Power
Topic: Debt and Power
Our trade deficit is now the second largest in history and large sums of our currency and debt are held by foreign nations. On March 11, Japan mentioned that it might "diversify" its holdings by getting "out of US debt instruments"(CBS Marketwatch/Yahoo finance), which added to a sell off in our bond market. On 2/22/05 the dollar dropped as South Korea said it might sell off its US dollar reserves for currencies that could yeild higher returns(CBS Marketwatch/Yahoo finance).
My question is how much power have we yielded to foreign nations by letting them control our debt and currency(I don't have figures at this time on how much debt and currency). My second question-should this be a concern of national security? If the dollar tanks and countries don't want to buy any more of our debt, what impact will that have on our economy and the normal functioning of our country?