Salt the earth
For anyone hoping Bush would be benign in the waning days of his lame duck period, current events bring bad news. Attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympics should have been benign, but he decided to take this opportunity of international cooperation to antagonize China in a speech about religion and human rights. Of course, he didn’t have the courage to do that in China – he stopped in Thailand to give his anti-China speech.
Of course, we’ve all heard the rhetoric about oil. The Republican plan is to keep America on oil by any means possible, and Bush is chief cheerleader for “drilling”. In their political double-speak, they talk about offshore drilling as an immediate boon to the US economy and instantaneous price relief at the gas pump. The reality is quite different. The Republican plan is to GIVE AWAY federal lands to big oil companies so they can take the oil from US lands and sell it on the GLOBAL market, not to subsidize the US oil market. This is the real plan they’re pushing for behind the sound bites, while also increasing the corporate welfare that the US government pays the oil companies. The net result to US citizens would be a 2-4% drop in gas prices in 7-12 years, and an increase in taxes to pay for the corporate welfare and inevitable environmental cleanup from spills.
The standard Republican plan of massive government spending increases has ballooned in dubya’s last term, of course. Not only will the next President inherit a massive budget shortfall, but he must deal with the record-setting debt that has accumulated over dubya’s tenure – forcing taxpayer money to be funneled to interest payments instead of improving the country.
Paying for Iraq. Starting in 2003, the US taxpayers have paid $48B for reconstruction projects in Iraq. The Iraqi government has paid almost nothing in comparison. From just 2005-2007, the Iraqi government took in $96B in oil revenues, and projects another $67-79B in oil revenues in 2008 alone. The Iraqi government is officially seeking “further outside investment” for more construction – a catchphrase for “the US must give us more money”. This is the continuing situation and legacy of the Bush doctrine in Iraq: destroy the country, have the US completely pay to rebuild it, create lots of chaos so it’s hard to track, and allow massive cash reserves to build up in US banks under the ownership of Iraqi government officials. The longer this continues, the more the US taxpayers get screwed over and the more billions go to the US-installed top government officials and sheiks.
At least he’s still strong on homeland security, right? Wrong again. Here in Wisconsin, like elsewhere, federal funding for homeland security was cut AGAIN, this time by 14%. This is the fourth year in a row that funding was cut. Coincidentally, shortchanging homeland security started right after Bush was “elected” the second time. It would be nice if he didn’t play politics with the nation’s security, but just like the terror alert level was raised and lowered according to Presidential election polls in 2004, now we’re ripening America for being attacked as soon as possible into the next administration.
Of course, we’ve all heard the rhetoric about oil. The Republican plan is to keep America on oil by any means possible, and Bush is chief cheerleader for “drilling”. In their political double-speak, they talk about offshore drilling as an immediate boon to the US economy and instantaneous price relief at the gas pump. The reality is quite different. The Republican plan is to GIVE AWAY federal lands to big oil companies so they can take the oil from US lands and sell it on the GLOBAL market, not to subsidize the US oil market. This is the real plan they’re pushing for behind the sound bites, while also increasing the corporate welfare that the US government pays the oil companies. The net result to US citizens would be a 2-4% drop in gas prices in 7-12 years, and an increase in taxes to pay for the corporate welfare and inevitable environmental cleanup from spills.
The standard Republican plan of massive government spending increases has ballooned in dubya’s last term, of course. Not only will the next President inherit a massive budget shortfall, but he must deal with the record-setting debt that has accumulated over dubya’s tenure – forcing taxpayer money to be funneled to interest payments instead of improving the country.
Paying for Iraq. Starting in 2003, the US taxpayers have paid $48B for reconstruction projects in Iraq. The Iraqi government has paid almost nothing in comparison. From just 2005-2007, the Iraqi government took in $96B in oil revenues, and projects another $67-79B in oil revenues in 2008 alone. The Iraqi government is officially seeking “further outside investment” for more construction – a catchphrase for “the US must give us more money”. This is the continuing situation and legacy of the Bush doctrine in Iraq: destroy the country, have the US completely pay to rebuild it, create lots of chaos so it’s hard to track, and allow massive cash reserves to build up in US banks under the ownership of Iraqi government officials. The longer this continues, the more the US taxpayers get screwed over and the more billions go to the US-installed top government officials and sheiks.
At least he’s still strong on homeland security, right? Wrong again. Here in Wisconsin, like elsewhere, federal funding for homeland security was cut AGAIN, this time by 14%. This is the fourth year in a row that funding was cut. Coincidentally, shortchanging homeland security started right after Bush was “elected” the second time. It would be nice if he didn’t play politics with the nation’s security, but just like the terror alert level was raised and lowered according to Presidential election polls in 2004, now we’re ripening America for being attacked as soon as possible into the next administration.
posted by zblog at
8:42 PM
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