From The Madison Capital Times, 10/7/03:
http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/zweifel/58204.php
Americans ask, 'What's Bush doing?'
By Dave Zweifel
Two stories last week illustrated more than anything just how messed
up we are these days.
The first had to do with the Democrats in Congress questioning the
mega-billion-dollar budget request that the Bush people say is
necessary for Iraq.
Why, they wanted to know, are we going to spend $9 million to
establish a ZIP code-like system in Iraq?
Is it necessary to spend $100 million to hide the families of 100
Iraqis in the witness protection program?
And, if we're going to spend all this U.S. taxpayer money, shouldn't
we be asking that some of it be paid back someday when that Iraqi oil
starts flowing again?
All good questions to which many taxpayers would like to know the
answer.
The other story ran under the headline "1.7 million more living in
poverty."
No, that wasn't about Iraq.
It was about us.
According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living
below the poverty line has risen from 11.7 percent in 2001 to 12.1
percent by the end of 2002.
On top of that, the U.S. median household income dropped 1.1 percent.
Here in the Midwest the news was even more grim.
Household income was off a full 2 percentage points, meaning that the
average family was struggling even harder to pay for rising health
care costs, higher gas prices and other essentials that are outpacing
its income.
That helps explain why so many American citizens are angry over this
whole Iraq quagmire.
If, as so many Bush partisans insist, we really were helping combat
terrorism by going to war in Iraq, most Americans would resign
themselves to the costs and get behind the rebuilding effort.
But, now that they know that they were misled about everything from
weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein's connection with the
atrocities of 9-11, many are angry.
And they get angrier when they see our own problems go unsolved
because we're out of money, thanks to that Iraq war and a host of tax
cuts that the average Joe didn't get anyway.
So while we're spending millions on protecting Iraqi witnesses and
millions more on dividing Iraq into ZIP code zones, we can't find a
way to help young families with soaring health insurance costs -
soaring so much that many of their employers can't afford to give them
raises - or deal with any of the other strains on the average
citizen's paycheck.
That's why more and more Americans are falling below the poverty line
and family income is going down, rather than up.
_________________________________________________________
Almost 3 years of Bush ***** is destroying this country. That must
be obvious to everyone. Even right-wingers know it, but won't admit
it.
Harry
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