Author: kevin

or maybe just the cruelty

So the new nonpartisan CBO budget projections are out, and the long and the short of it is that if GWB’s tax cuts are made permanent, there is no end in sight to the budget deficits. The government won’t be able to take in as much money as it spends for the foreseeable future. This means that paying off the national debt will become a larger and larger part of our lives and our children’s lives. There is a simple and obvious solution to this which is to rescind the tax cuts. We’ve got a war to pay for and cities to rebuild. Now is not the time to ask Americans to contribute less to the cause. Of course, what the Republicans are proposing instead is something much worse. Rather than ask the wealthy to pay more (since the tax cut favored the highest tax brackets the most), they are instead asking the poor to survive on less. In 2004, the budget deficit was 413 BILLION DOLLARS. For last year it is projected to be 318 Billion. In order to “close the gap” the Republican congress and White House are pushing to reduce programs to help the poor and sick by several million dollars and to then call that even. What kind of crack is K street dishing out these days?

I can’t wait for the new “Health Savings Plan” announcement. This is either incredibly stupid or just obviously cruel. A huge percentage of Americans have no health insurance or benefits. This is due to the costs of insurance being so high for those on limited means. The Republicans response is to allow Americans to put aside money tax-free that they can use on health care. So, in effect, this will be another tax cut. I can’t wait for the details because to me this just looks like another way for the richest to skip out on paying their fair share while simultaneously screwing the poor and making corporate America better off for it.

A NASA scientist reveals that the administration is attempting to silence his findings

Dr. James Hansen who is a leading climatologist has announced that the Bush administration is attempting to censor him because he is calling for a reduction in emissions to slow Global Warning. New York Times Article This isn’t the first such accusation, the scientific community has been trying to call public attention to this for years. The Bush administration and industry have been trying to silence critics of their policies while simultaneously raising up poorly researched studies from the low-rate “scientists” and claiming that the scientific community can’t agree.

If the government is in the right, why do they continually try to silence anyone who would question them? Don’t they think we can make up our own minds given the real facts?

Spying on American citizens is now the “Terrorism Prevention Program”

So the Bush administration has been on a barn-storming PR campaign to create credibility for the President’s order to spy on US Citizens without congressional or judicial oversight. We return to 1984-esque arguments and double-speak here. The actions were justified because we are at war. The War On Terror is an unending war against a dispersed enemy. A war that can never be won, and even if it was won, we couldn’t be sure that it was. Using a “War On Terror” for extra-legal actions is basically declaring the presidency above the law for all time and administration knows it. If the president gets away with this, the President can do anything he wants under the guise of “protecting our freedoms.” They already claim that people who disagree with their policies are “giving aid and comfort to our enemies.” The next logical step is to jail dissidents. That is what Big Brother, The Cold-War-era Soviet Union or Saddam Hussein would do. Maybe Bush will declare himself “Leader for Life” because no one else could protect the American People. After polling showed that the American people weren’t so incensed if the spying on Americans was done to find terrorists the spying policy was renamed the “Terrorism Prevention Program” and that talking point was hammered home over and over on TV. The problem is that we already know that the NSA net was cast far wider than the Bush Administration would have us believe. They refuse to give out the details for fear of alerting our enemies to our tactics, but that has become boilerplate for the administration preventing the American people from knowing anything about what is really going on.

If we want to truly show the world the power of democracy and freedom, we should be doing whatever we can to protect the people while making civil liberties and general welfare the highest priorities. The government should be welcoming light being shown into its practices, not obstructing truth everywhere it can. The US looks more like the oppressive regimes of the Middle East these days than the freedom-loving, liberty-preserving beacon of hope that we claim to be.

when even the Catholic Church says so
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002748197_vatican19.html

new estimates are out

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002739307_warcosts14.html (related article)

The original Bush administration estimate for the costs of the Iraq war were between $10 Billion and $100 Billion (this came from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz). Bush Administration Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsay suggested that it was more like $100 Billion to $200 Billion and he was immediately fired. As of this moment, congress has appropriated $357 Billion dollars and we are nowhere near done over there.

These two papers
The Economic Costs of the Iraq War, by L. Bilmes and J.E. Stiglitz
The Economic Costs of the War in Iraq, by S. Wallsten and K. Kosec

represent new estimates from liberals and conservatives (the first paper is from a Columbia University prof and the second from an analyst at the Brookings institute (a conservative think-tank) estimate the Real Cost of the War between $657 Billion and $2 Trillion dollars. Their estimates take into account the expected future costs of supporting the effort in Iraq plus all the lost wages and productivity by those killed plus the additional costs in fuel to Americans and all the other little details that insurance people like to compute, but the Bush administration claimed was too hard to calculate before the war.

The administration claims that you can’t pay too high a price to protect our freedom, but that is just the same kind of mindless bullshit that they sprout anytime dares question their judgment or decisions. If you look at the real numbers, we are less safe now then we ever have been. The number of terrorist attacks world-wide are up 3 times over last year which was up twice the year before. Both are all-time highs. The US invasion of Iraq is minting new US-hating terrorists everyday that we remain there. We are providing a rallying cry for radical leaders in the middle-east. With GWB’s saber-rattling towards Iran in the last few days it makes the problem even worse.

Meanwhile we are spending our Nation’s capital in both economic and moral senses on a needless folly that all the experienced voices in government disagreed with, but were shouted down or replaced with yes-men. Anytime someone at the Pentagon or within the administration questioned the military judgment of a group of chicken-hawks playing toy soldier with other people’s children, they were removed or asked to step down. That left no real voices of wisdom or real discussion within the White House. Now, we will be paying for that stupidity the rest of our and our children’s days.

GWB has left America bankrupt and with no moral authority or respect in the world. It is time that congress perform its oversight duties and impeach this cretin before he does any more damage to our once great nation.