Wait a second.  The government taking part of your retirement money and investing it in private companies, have I not heard this before?

I will be willing to bet two things:

1.  The government will not willingly give up it's controlling interest in the company, which makes the US government slowly gain control of a private business and the private sector of our economy.  We have seen how well semi Government controlled companies have done for us lately (Fannie/Freddie anyone).

2.  Who gets the choice of what companies the government will buy into?  Do you really think that politics will be left at the door?

I wonder how close this Democrat Congressional bill will be to Bush's one that got shot down three years ago.

If my studies are correct, this idea and Bush's idea sounds a little like FDR's original Social Security Retirement bill in which Government invested of a portion of your retire taxes/money.  It was shot down then for fears of Government's interference in private business; it needs to be shot down again.

The US Government is already way too far into taking over private businesses with what Bush is hoping will be temporary.  But when a Democrat gets placed in that office, there will be no one to stop the government from permanently controlling the industry and finance of this country.

I am afraid that Socialism is here to stay people.

Sad to say, I agree with you.  I feel for my children and grand children most of all.  "Grandpa, tell me about the time you could go where you wanted to when you wanted to - we like to hear those fairy tales".

hmm... why would it be a fairy tale?  I d say the two most important traits the founding fathers gave us is industriousness, and VIOLENCE.  I m pretty sure many Americans still have both traits.

Unless US law is radically different to how it works here (and as a general rule it's not), I wouldn't have thought a democrat government could bind it's successors into keeping a particular piece of legislation, meaning that presumably if they introduced a bunch of stuff that was seen as a disaster, the republicans could then get voted in and repeal/remove it. Obviously they could make it politically difficult, and introduce costs to dissuade a future government from removing it, but that's about all I could see happening, hence I can't help but feel there's a slight overreaction to the likely state of the US in the future if Obama gets into power.