DETROIT -- Bubble boy is trying to recast himself as the connected leader -- engaged, caring and compassionate, boldly confronting the natural disasters he, at first, napped through and largely ignored. President George W. Bush has regrouped his cadre of political hacks to pretend they are competent and know how to govern -- an impossible assignment for people chosen for their loyalty and ability to use deception and lies to win political battles.
Bush and his cronies like the game of politics, winning elections and being on top. They relish the power, the props of office and the authority. They enjoy control so they can serve their corporate sponsors, perpetuate the regime and essentially line their own pockets. They thrive on the sport of gutter politics, but they find the actual work of governing demanding, tedious, even boring.
These are the quintessential Bushevik apparatchiks. They are busy at their jobs, trying to clean up the messes their inattentive, isolated and pampered boss creates. Bush could not survive without these butlers, ready to tidy up after his public-policy parties that inevitably end in disaster.
In time, the American people will handle the natural disasters and bear the enormous costs. Working people, through their payroll taxes, will pick up most of the tab for rebuilding the hurricane-devastated Gulf States. That's a vital function of government, and even the Busheviks -- who disdain the collective strength of the public sector -- are doing nothing but looking to government as the solution to their problems.
But worse than any hurricanes are the unnatural disasters George W. Bush has created. Those dark deeds pose a much greater threat to our national well-being and will take decades to repair. Some of the damage may be irreparable.
Bush's horrible war of choice and his wild and unsustainable deficits are a national curse and will be the ignominious legacy of his failed presidency.
Bush, our runaway worst president ever, deserves that distinction, most of all, for lying about the need to invade Iraq, and for sacrificing thousands of innocent lives to try out his disastrous experiment in using bullying military action in order to foster responsible, peaceful democracies in the Middle East.
Right behind that debacle, George W. Bush will be known to the ages as the "Great Debtor," the most fiscally reckless and irresponsible man ever to sit in the Oval Office. Bush is waging a $5 billion-a-month war, borrowing billions to cover the revenue losses from giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and introducing a new, largely unfunded entitlement -- Medicare prescription drugs -- with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade.
The bill for Hurricane Katrina is already pegged at more than $200 billion. Bush cavalierly says, "It costs what it costs," as he insists on making permanent tax cuts that will further drain the Treasury, require more government borrowing, drive up interest rates and burden middle-class wage-earners.
No sacrifice, no accountability. Bush's butlers tell him "strong and sustained" economic growth will eradicate the deficit. Treasury Secretary John Snow says the hurricane reconstruction will be costly, but he reassures us that "this administration is not, and will not stray from our course of federal deficit reduction." The aptly named Snow is either stupid or a shameless political whore.
Bush spends like a drunken Texas Air National Guard pilot. Under his watch, annual federal spending has skyrocketed from $1.86 trillion to $ 2.48 trillion, a staggering 33 percent increase. Ah, but you think, that must be because of the war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq.
Well, that's some of it. But a dirty little truth Bush tries to hide is that discretionary federal spending has increased steadily during his White House years, far outpacing the rate of growth under Bill Clinton.
Bush and his handmaidens in fiscal madness, the arithmetically challenged Republicans running Congress, have shown no inclination to reduce spending to offset the revenue losses they created. As far as the eye can see, we're facing $300 billion to $400 billion annual deficits. The nonpartisan Concord Coalition estimates $5.7 trillion in federal red ink over the next 10 years.
Bush's stewardship of the U.S. Treasury is criminal and his radical Republican allies on Capitol Hill are accomplices. Brian Riedle, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told "Capitol Hill Blue's" Bill Straub that Bush and Company are on a disastrous course.
"Unless lawmakers make difficult decisions now, they will be dumping the largest debt in the world into the laps of the next generation," Riedle said. "Within a decade, tax increases would need to reach $7,000 per household -- a 37 percent tax hike, just to balance the budget. And that amount will only grow."
Our worst president ever is teamed with the worst, most shortsighted and irresponsible congressional leadership since the robber barons ran Washington in the 19th century.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the "Lord of Lard," spreads the pork around the House when he's not busy serving as Majority Leader Tom DeLay's personal masseur. The $286 billion transportation bill Bush signed into law in Hastert's district contains at least $24 billion in pure pork and is a monument to government waste, shamefully funded with debt.
Bush and most of his cheerleaders in Congress say they're going to tighten spending to cover the unanticipated Hurricane Katrina costs. Are there any fools on earth who believe that? Salient fact: Bush has never vetoed an appropriations bill, no matter how much it oozed with pork fat. In fact, he's never vetoed any legislation, which shows just how incestuous those two branches of government have become under the Bushevik regime.
Over in the Senate, the leader in fiscal fantasy is Majority Leader Dr. Bill "Dirty Hands" Frist. His prime concern these days is that the $50 billion down payment lawmakers approved for the hurricane disaster does not deter them from supporting more tax cuts, especially the estate tax, so dear to Dr. Frist's heart and, coincidentally, his growing fortune.
Repealing the federal estate tax will suck up another $50 billion of revenue a year. Frist and other proponents of the looting of the Treasury of that sum of money won't propose a dime of budget offsets to cover the loss, except to slash programs for the poor. The estate tax only affects the top 1 percent.
Frist's fortune is certainly in that category and his wealth is even greater since he's been getting investment tips from Martha Stewart. The Securities and Exchange Commission and federal prosecutors are investigating Frist's unloading of all his holdings in Hospital Corporation of American (HCA) two weeks before the share price plunged.
The company Frist's daddy founded is the largest for-profit hospital chain in the nation. Frist never saw any conflict in owning stock in the company, in spite of the fact that he has considerable influence on laws and policy that directly impact the profitability of private hospitals.
Frist claimed his holdings were in a blind trust, but the senator showed remarkable vision in dumping his shares just before news of poor earnings drove the company's stock price down 15 percent. Frist -- whose trust is valued up to $ 35 million -- insists he had no prior knowledge that HCA's earnings were about to tank.
Frist's brother sits on the company's board of directors. Company insiders sold $112 million worth of stock before the price dropped.
Just coincidence, I'm sure.
Frist wants to run for president. You might think such investment hanky-panky would make him damaged political goods. Nonsense. George W. Bush did his own insider stock dump and got away with it.
In 1990, he was a director of Harken Energy, a seat he got when his daddy's pals were bailing out the younger Bush's failing company. Harken was heading toward hard times. Two months before the stock dipped, Bush sold his shares. The SEC investigated the shifty move. Bush dodged the criminal bullet, but he still refuses to publicly disclose the findings of the probe.
Bush, Frist and most of the radical Republicans watch every penny of their own money. But when it comes to our money, they spend, squander and waste it without any sense of responsibility, accountability or decency.
Dealing with our nation's fiscal health requires forthright courage. George W. Bush cravenly hides from that duty, and his butlers are on vacation.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Sept. 27 2005 |