I keep asking myself, “Where is the outrage in this country? When are we going to wake up and see what’s happening under the ‘leadership’ of George W. Bush?”People need to inform themselves. Forget the soundbites — do some serious reading. You’ll see that Bush, while sending us into a disastrous war, has ignored the real issues facing us, such as:
The war on terrorism: It’s now clear that Saddam Hussein was not an “imminent” threat to the United States. He could not deploy mass weaponry against the U.S. Yet, Bush insists the war was justified, and initially stated he had no interest in an accounting from the CIA about its seriously flawed intelligence.
Thousands of people have died, largely due to this faulty intelligence. And he didn’t want to know why or how that happened? (Now, bowing to justified pressure, he has agreed to an investigation.) We went to war predicated on what someone might, some day, have or do. That’s an extremely dangerous premise on which to start wars. The unilateral action by the United States and its resultant mess in post-war Iraq was surely not the best solution. And the world is not any safer because of it.Meanwhile, the demon behind Sept. 11 — Osama Bin Laden — is still loose, and al-Qaida and the Taliban are reconstituting.
Why are we spending billions in Iraq, when more resources are necessary to break up groups that pose the truly imminent threats to world security? (The United States is now planning a greater presence in Afghanistan, but what took so long?)
The deficit: After years of surpluses under the previous administration, the government is $477 billion, or more, in the red for 2004. Bush’s unbridled spending and impractical tax cuts are pushing the deficit out of control. This jobless economic “recovery” is not resulting in the increased tax revenue needed to offset the increased expenditures. The rationale for cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations is that they will use the money to expand and start businesses, and hire new employees who will pay taxes. That’s not happening! These deficits cannot continue without severe, or catastrophic, economic ramifications. But the administration has no realistic deficit-reduction plan.
Health care: 43 million citizens uninsured, millions more severely underinsured, businesses dropping coverage because they can’t afford the premiums, people using the emergency room when medically unnecessary — because they have no primary-care physician because they have no insurance, and on and on. Costs rise, the problem is exacerbated, the cycle continues. The long-term costs of this issue, to both business and society, are enormous. When is this going to be fixed?
Prescription drug costs: Can there be any stronger proof that this administration is in bed with corporate interests than this provision in the new Medicare prescription plan: The U.S. government is prohibited from negotiating discounted prices on prescription drugs. This is unbelievable and inexcusable. With its enormous buying power, surely our government could contract with drug companies to provide Medicare recipients affordable drugs. And there is no reason to prohibit the importing of prescription drugs from Canada, other than U.S. pharmaceutical profits might suffer. The safety issue is bogus. Might the real problem be that Bush, Cheney, and their cronies would lose support — i.e., money — from U.S. pharmaceutical companies?
Employment: The U.S. is losing manufacturing and high-tech jobs, which traditionally have paid good wages. Those jobs are increasingly replaced by lower-paying service-industry jobs. So, in addition to the unemployed, we have the underemployed — those who are working, but earning far less money. They go unmentioned by those who insist the economy is improving. I see no plans by the administration on how to help bring back good jobs to this country, just Bush’s “worker re-training” initiative. Do we re-train skilled workers, who were once earning a living wage, to work at fast-food restaurants and convenience stores? Of what relevance is training if there are no good jobs left?
There are also the new labor laws regarding overtime pay: More low-wage earners will be eligible for overtime pay, but thousands of middle-income workers will become ineligible. And the Labor Department has published for employers a pamphlet on how to avoid paying overtime to their newly eligible employees. Wage earners should be incensed, but where is the outrage?
The list goes on, but these are, I believe, the issues that concern most Americans. Having lived through the Vietnam and Watergate eras, with their attendant political activism, I can’t fathom the thus-far tepid reaction of the country to these issues. We all should be asking questions and demanding answers. And we don’t need lip service. We need real and workable solutions. So far, we’re not getting them.
