Molly Ivins: Noble Ideals, Nasty Actions

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Fri, 04 Feb 2005 20:01:16 -0800

[Zepps_News] #Molly Ivins: Noble Ideals, Nasty Actions

 

 

 

 

Noble Ideals, Nasty Actions

 

--Bush pronouncements don't match Bush programs

 

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate, Februsry 3, 2005

 

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18490

 

AUSTIN, Texas -- I don't get it. The divide between the rhetoric and the

reality in this administration is larger than I can span. The dissonance

between the noble ideals expressed and the nasty actions carried out is

too raw for me.

 

For example, Bush announces: " Our founders dedicated this country to the

cause of human dignity, the rights of every person and the possibilities

of every life. This conviction leads us into the world to help the

afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men. "

(I got that nugget from the 2003 State of the Union via an article by

Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully.) So how come we give less to the

afflicted than any other advanced nation?

 

And how come we're torturing people? How come we're putting people into

high office -- attorney general, Department of Homeland Security -- who

unleashed the whole torture scandal? The International Red Cross says

torture is still going on today at Guantanamo. Torture has blackened our

name around the world and made the president's words about bringing

freedom and democracy sound hollow and hypocritical.

 

Item: Bush finally agreed to go along with the creation of a Department

of Homeland Security, asserting nothing was more important than the

safety of Americans. But then came lobbyists for the American Chemistry

Council, and suddenly our safety wasn't so important. According to

Christine Todd Whitman, then-head of the Environmental Protection

Agency, she and Tom Ridge of Homeland Security crafted regulations

requiring the 15,000 highest-risk chemical plants to take steps to

reduce their vulnerability to terrorism. Seems like a sensible idea.

 

But nope, the administration wouldn't support it, and the lobby fought

it. " I sometimes wonder whether those companies spend more money trying

to defeat new regulations than they would by simply complying with

them, " writes Whitman in her book " It's My Party Too. " There are no

federal regulations today requiring chemical companies to prepare for

terrorist attacks.

 

Here's an administration dedicated to destroying government as much as

possible until, as Grover Norquist says, " we can drown it in the

bathtub. " But they have no hesitation about spending our money on

" public relations. " The Bushies have spent $250 million on " public

relations " during their first term, more than twice as much as in

Clinton's last term. But it was not public-interest spending, like

trying to get people to eat healthier diets or not drink while driving.

This was propaganda for the administration's political agenda.

 

Then there is the ludicrously loony matter of the budget deficit. Recall

these people inherited a whopping budget surplus. For over a year now,

the administration has said, " We've got a plan to cut the deficit in

half over the next five years. " The deficit in 2004 was $412 billion,

the largest ever. The White House now says this year's will be $427

billion -- BUT that the plan to cut the deficit is " on track. " Man,

that's some track.

 

To this cascading disaster, Bush wants to add $2 trillion in transition

costs over the next decade for his scheme to partially privatize Social

Security. This is one I'm really having trouble figuring out. There is

no crisis in the Social Security program. It is not in trouble. If

nothing is done, come 2042 -- or 2052 if you believe the Congressional

Budget Office -- SS will have to start paying less than its promised

benefits, but will still be able to pay seniors more than it does today

in constant dollars. You can easily fix even that minor problem by

lifting the cap on FICA taxes now at $90,000.

 

Why should people who make more than $90,000 have their higher income

exempted, when every nickel made by people below the poverty level is

taxed?

 

As Paul Krugman of The New York Times points out, if you accept the rosy

scenario the administration is using to paint privatization as an

effective scheme, then Social Security is in no trouble at all and we

don't need to do anything about it -- economic growth will take care of

it all. Contrariwise, if you accept the doom-and-gloom scenario the

administration uses to prove that SS is in trouble, then there's no way

the privatization scheme will be anything other than a disaster.

 

Dogged if I know what these people have against SS, a program that works

just fine and has kept elderly people from having to eat cat food for

many years now. Because the right wing has somehow become a cult of

anti-government nuthatches, I have no idea where we're headed. The

purposes of government, according to the U.S. Constitution, is " to form

a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,

provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure

the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. "

 

--Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas

Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including

" Who Let the Dogs In? "

--

 

 

 

Election 2004

The Triumph of the Swill

" The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost

duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation.

It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our

nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation

of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national

life. "

Adolph Hitler, My New World Order,

Proclamation to the German Nation

at Berlin, February 1, 1933

 

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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