Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman from Georgia, will be in St. Louis on Sunday for a fund-raising event.

According to organizers, Barr also will “announce he’s made it onto the Illinois ballot.”  It’s his 35th state where the Libertarian ticket will be a choice for voters. Barr needed 25,000 signatures in Illinois and collected 49,562.

No such effort is needed in Missouri, where Barr and fellow Libertarians are guaranteed to be on the ballot because of adequate votes for the party’s candidates in 2006.

Barr’s fundraiser will be at Syberg’s Restaurant, 2430 Old Dorsett Rd, from 6-9 p.m.
On Thursday, Barr sent out releases where he weighed in on two topics:

– The war in Iraq: “The U.S. already has spent more than a half trillion dollars on the Iraq war and occupation, and costs continue to escalate $10 billion a month,” Barr said.  “It’s time to turn off the money spigot. The high price being paid by American taxpayers alone is good reason to conduct a speedy and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.” 

“It certainly is time to expect Iraq to pay for its own reconstruction, including for training and equipping its military and security forces,” he added. “Iraq is one of the principal beneficiaries of the rapid increase in oil prices.  It could earn as much as $80 billion this year, twice its revenues last year.  Iraq may end up with a $50 billion surplus by year end—while the U.S. is running a half trillion dollar deficit.  Something is very wrong with this picture.”

—Social Security: “The U.S. is facing a financial tsunami as the Baby Boomers retire,” Barr warned. “The total unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare is more than $100 trillion—that is ten times the official national debt! The longer we wait to act, the harder it will be to reform the system.

“Social Security was sold to the American people as a system of social insurance, but that was merely a polite fraud to win their votes,” notes Barr. “It is a pay-as-you-go system….”

“I am proposing a system of private retirement accounts,” he said. “Younger workers will be able to put increasing amounts of their tax payments into individual accounts. New workers entering the system will be able to exit Social Security entirely. The transition will be paid for in part through savings from adjusting benefits to account for the erroneous use of a wage rather than price index for setting payments and the fact that beneficiaries are living longer. Other savings will be achieved by cutting nonessential programs throughout the government, including corporate welfare.”

“The system is headed towards financial collapse,” Barr asserted. “It starts running a deficit in 2017 and the red ink piles up fast. In essence, to keep the system afloat we will either have to double taxes or halve benefits. Neither is an appealing option.”