Back on the Case

In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on the premise that he would safely cut taxes (mostly for his wealthy benefactors) and still allow for balancing the budget. After he took office and that was seen as no longer feasible (and then again after 9/11) he pushed through the tax cuts anyway. Then, after the war in Iraq was obviously going to increase the burgeoning deficit, he rammed home even more tax cuts.

Speaking of the war, the Bush bunch stated, with absolute smug certainty, that the Iraq war effort would cost the U.S. only $1.7 billion, and here it stands at 100 times that and rising. Many, many of those billions have gone to Cheney's Halliburton and other "connected" companies, most of them by a no-bid process.

The Bushies assured all the gullible citizenry that the prescription drug bill was at a reasonable expense, but experts now project its cost at nearly triple the Administration’s original estimates over the next 15 years. A staggeringly high percentage of this trillion dollar boondoggle is going directly into the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry.

And now they’re peddling more bogus numbers to try to get Social Security private accounts in place. Private accounts won't cure the solvency problems that this program is due to have in the imminent future (well, 2040 or thereabouts) but it will pump hundreds of billions into selected (by the government) corporate stocks.

When are the American people, or at least an electoral majority of them, going to wake up and smell the grifters in the $3000 suits?



Gas prices over $2 a gallon. What a surprise – not!! I predicted as much when Bush was first "elected," seeing as how he, his family and most of his cronies are fossil fuel men who would take windfall profits as the prices went up. It’s no wonder that Cheney – another oil man – fought all the way to the (stacked deck) Supreme Court to hide from public scrutiny the closed door meetings he conducted with the fat cats of the energy industry. That old expression "sold us down the river" comes to mind.

The salient fact of the "shortage" of oil is that it’s not a shortage of crude oil, but of refineries, none of which have been built since Bush/Cheney took office. Instead of pushing hard for that and alternate fuels, the Administration is heavily touting something called "cleaner-burning coal."

My prediction in this matter is that companies in Europe and Asia will take the lead in alternate fuels and leave the U.S. in the dust and smog of high-cost, dirty energy.