Re: OT BushCo panders to special interests

On 1 Aug 2005 10:48:39 -0700, atl_man2@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

>A Year of Accomplishment for Special Interests
>
>As he headed to his ranch in Crawford for the month of August,
>President Bush gave himself a pat on the back. On his radio address
>Saturday, Bush said, "this year Congress and I have addressed many key
>priorities." The only problem is, this administration's priorities are
>different from your priorities. Every major legislative initiative
>signed by the president this year has been a boon to special interests,
>but ignored the real needs of the American people.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- HIGHWAY BILL: On Friday, Congress sent to
>President Bush a six-year $286.5 billion highway bill which was
>overflowing with wasteful pork spending. Take the $25 million "Bridge
>to Nowhere," connecting two South Carolina towns with a combined
>population of 2,000. Or the $95 million appropriated to widen a highway
>in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac counties in Wisconsin -- "a widening that
>the state Department of Transportation says is unnecessary for 15 to 20
>years and that legislators approved after bypassing the DOT and a
>commission charged with developing major road projects." And thanks to
>Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), known as "Uncle Ted" for his willingness to
>spoil his constituents with pork projects, the bill also includes $200
>million for a one-mile span linking Ketchikan, Alaska, with Gravina
>Island (currently, fifty people live on Gravina Island -- "they reach
>Ketchikan by taking a seven-minute ferry ride") and $1.5 million for a
>single bus stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- CAFTA: President Bush hailed the final passage
>of the Central American Free Trade Agreement by saying that the House
>"has acted to advance America's economic and national security
>interests by passing the CAFTA-DR agreement." But the combined
>economies of the six other CAFTA nations "only equal that of New Haven,
>Conn." and "account for barely one percent of U.S. trade." The biggest
>winners in the so-called CAFTA victory are the drug and
>telecommunications industries, not the American worker. Meanwhile, "the
>Bush administration's fiscal irresponsibility with tax cuts and
>unnecessary spending priorities has crippled our ability to help
>workers retrain and compete on the international stage." Furthermore,
>President Bush "has tightened the eligibility requirements for [the
>Trade Adjustment Assistance program], denying many workers even the
>modest resources available under that program," "pursued policies that
>leave many workers who qualify for TAA benefits without access to this
>program," and essentially taken the safety net out from under real
>workers with real families directly affected by CAFTA.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- ENERGY BILL: Next up was energy legislation
>that lavished the fossil-fuel industries with $515 million in new
>subsidies, including "$125 million to reimburse oil and gas producers
>for 115% of the costs of remediating, reclaiming, and closing orphaned
>wells." The House managed to add $35 billion of pork to the energy bill
>in just the last three weeks before it was passed - "a total of $88.9
>billion in subsidies to industry over 10 years in the bill." Despite
>these handouts, Congress admits the bill will "do nothing in the short
>term to drive down high gasoline and other energy prices or
>significantly reduce America's growing reliance on foreign oil." A 2004
>analysis by the administration's Energy Information Administration
>found that the Bush-backed energy bill will actually raise gas prices
>and increase oil demand nearly 14 percent by 2010.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- BANKRUPTCY BILL: Then came the "bankruptcy
>reform" monstrosity, which made it more difficult for average Americans
>suffering from financial misfortune to declare bankruptcy. The credit
>card industry, which took in $30 billion in profits last year and doled
>out more than $7.8 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle,
>lobbied relentlessly for the bill, pushing the fiction that
>bankruptcies occur because of "irresponsible consumerism" (in bill
>sponsor Charles Grassley's (R-IA) words). In fact, "ninety percent of
>all bankruptcies are triggered by the loss of a job, high medical bills
>or divorce." In recent years, personal bankruptcy rates have shot to
>record highs amid a weak labor market and declining health insurance
>coverage. The bill created several "new hurdles" that will make it
>harder and more expensive for Americans to recover from such episodes,
>while failing to stop the actual abuses that plague the system.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- IRAQ SUPPLEMENTAL: Even the Iraq supplemental
>spending was covered with special interest fingerprints. Though the
>bills were passed without any provisions to hold the White House
>accountable for its flailing Iraq strategy, and failed to deal with the
>equipment shortfalls plaguing our troops, they did offer major cash for
>questionable contracts and corrupt and incompetent corporations. At the
>same time, the Pentagon has pursued "back-door budgeting for the wars."
>Gordon Adams, director of security policy studies at George Washington
>University, referenced "reduced training, exercises and operating
>tempo, slowdowns in maintenance, [and] delays on maintaining
>facilities" as ways that the Pentagon has tried to get around paying
>for the bloated war costs. Other strategies appear to be not paying
>soldiers what they are owed and deducting money for debts that do not
>even exist.
>
>FOR SPECIAL INTERESTS -- TORT REFORM: And finally, there was the
>so-called "tort reform" legislation, pushed by conservatives who
>claimed "the prospect of big jury awards in medical malpractice cases
>was causing insurance rates to soar and doctors to abandon their
>practices." If you scrape away the overheated rhetoric and look at the
>reality, however, a very different picture emerges. The legislation has
>no real effect on the cost of health care: the nonpartisan
>Congressional Budget Office found malpractice costs account for less
>than 2 percent of health care spending, and that capping medical
>malpractice would affect private health insurance premiums by a measly
>one half of 1 percent. Moreover, the caps would "disproportionately
>affect" children and seniors who live on fixed incomes. According to
>the CBO, it also would "undermine incentives for safety" while at the
>same time making it "harder for some patients with legitimate but
>difficult claims to find legal representation."

Thank God none of that money went to any Democrat developed projects, right?

--
John H.
On the 'PocoLoco' out of Deale, MD
.

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