In my ever growing efforts to inform people about social security reform (something that not only I have taken on, but also the entire College Republicans group at Seton Hill) I was invited by Melissa Hart's office to attend a town hall meeting with Dick Cheney this afternoon at LaRoche College in North Park. This was the second time I got to see Dick Cheney over the last six months, the first being at the Presidential Debate in September. While I wasn't able to shake his hand this time around, I did one-up myself and actually get the chance to ask him a question directly!

My participation, and rather complex pro-privatization question, during the town hall meeting got me interviewed (and actually shown on) by both Channel 4 and 11 news, as well as the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Here's a lowdown of all that went on:


Vice President Dick Cheney and Congresswoman Melissa Hart lead a town hall discussion on Social Security Reform
Watch the video of me on Channel 4!

The event was very cool, and actually felt like I was back on the campaign trail. They announced the VP with Melissa Hart and the two of them walked out together and sat in a center stage, surrounded by around 300 people. The first thing Cheney did was lay out the facts... mainly that there is an undeniable problem with social security. He said there may not be an "immediate crisis, but there definitely is a crisis in the long term life of the program." Each year we don't reform social sec. we lose about 6 billion dollars in the program because of new retirees. And the newest reports show that things are going to go broke a year earlier than first projected. These are absolute facts, proven through income numbers and population growth. It's not something that people can just write off and deny (although many of the libs in Congress are trying to do just that.)

Dick and Melissa then spoke about the ways to strengthen and fix social security. It's important to note that this entire thing wasn't about private accounts or the president's agenda. But rather he laid out all of the options on the table, the good and the bad, and in the end endorsed a few of them. The idea of private accounts or a Thrift Savings Account, both of which he endorsed, are both quite viable and would help growth in our private economy. But he was also careful to say that these aren't the only solutions. Other steps are going to be made to help security along.

Afterwards, they took questions from the audience. We had been told by the usher to think of a question to ask, probably because we are three strapping-young men concerned about our future. The question itself was about the caps that would be enforced to limit early investment in the private accounts. The second part to my question regarded how those caps would expand, whether they would be individually expanded or raised nationally.

It was a great event... now if only we could get something like that to come to the Dome at CCBC...

I was just recently added to this blog as a contributor, so I figured it would be a good idea to introduce myself and why I'm going to be posting on the Beaver County GOP blog. My name is Mike Rubino (a good number of you know my dad, by the same name, who is a committee member from Monaca) and I'm a 19 year old college student at Seton Hill Univiersity. I'm a resident of Beaver County, and am extremely adamant about my right-winged politics. Most of the folk who read this blog were invited to the Bush parties I helped organize over the summer (or you may have seen me play John Edwards in the Cellar Dweller comedy routine at the Zell Miller rally). I am also the chairman of the College Republicans at Seton Hill.

I remember talking about getting the Young Republicans kick-started here in the county, and I hope that I will be able to provide a sort of youth perspective of things on this blog. I do my best to stay on top of the current issues and the true facts behind them (because if you've seen my letters to the Times, there is nothing I hate more than people waving around misleading numbers and falsehoods.)

It's great that the RCBC has a good grasp on the blog community, because these things are what brought down Rather and what helped President Bush win the online news war of the last campaign. I'm looking forward to some good conversations and exchanges of ideas. Thanks!