Snake oil. Equivalent to Shrub's proposal to privatize social security. The social security "crisis" is just as real as the "crisis" posed by Iraq's WMD. It doesn't exist. The Boston Globe sums it up nicely:

the statement that starting in 2018 the government "will somehow have to come up with" extra billions to stay afloat ignores the fact that there exists a substantial trust fund now invested in US treasury bonds and will make up the shortfall for several decades. Second, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected the trust fund will be exhausted in 2052; the year 2042 is an older figure that came from the Social Security Trustees, who used a different set of economic assumptions. Finally, even after 2052, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted the system could still pay out 80 percent of normal benefits without new taxes or borrowing.

So the "crisis" is that in 2052, the system as it now stands will only be able to pay out 80% of the guaranteed benefits. Here are more details and a nifty chart on how privatization would be a raw deal and, according to White House officials, won't even solve the ginned up crisis.

And since I didn't watch the SOTU last night, I missed the Kodak moment when an Iraqi woman who voted in the election hugged the mother of a soldier killed in Falluja. Seems that the Iraqi woman isn't your typical Iraqi voter. I'm shocked.