Now it is time to see what has happened over the last 4 years to see if we are better off.
Mr Bush came to the White House with many promises, but did he deliver? He did give us
tax cuts which made all Americans happier. He did fulfill that campaign promise. Then in September of 2001, America was hit with the worst terrorist act in the history of the world. Mr. Bush did step up and did show leadership at a critical time in American history. Mr. Bush did promise to re-build the military that had suffered under the previous administration. He also fulfilled that promise. We came to discover later that this was part of the plan to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. In the first 10 days after he came to Washington D.C, he was planning the war in Iraq. This was revealed by one of his cabinet members, who later left the administration, Paul O'Neil.
After that day in September, the economy went south and this was blamed on the attack of 911. After that the stock market took a dive when we found out that corporate exceutives were falisfying accounting statements. Enron, who was painting a rosey picture of their finances were lying to the people. People lost billions to these criminals and these were primary retirement savings of 401K's. After 911, congress and the President pushed through a bill called the "Patriot Act" that denied rights to anyoone the administration decided that were "enemy combatants". The wholesale round-up of American citizens that may have been associated with 911. These people were denied counsel and held without any charges. Meanwhile, we had no laws that made these corporate thieves accountable for their actions. To date only one of these people were prosecuted.
The economy kept getting worse and the tax cuts that Mr. Bush gave us did little to help, in fact they actually made matters worse. We now have a unbalanced budget. In his budget proposal the budget woes continue. Mr. Bush also decided that Iraq was an enemy and based upon flawed intelligence took our country to war in Iraq. He took us to war, but unlike his father, he did not have the backing of the United Nations. After strong arming some other countries, he does have a coalition. We also went into Afganistan to get the mastermind of the 911 attacks, Osama Ben Ladin. We did rid the world of this opresive regime, the Tailban, and did not get Osama Ben Ladin. These actions were necessary, but we as American taxpayers, have to pay for all these actions. Mr. Bush went to congress and asked for 87 billion dollars to pay for these actions. Congress gave him the money. This request added to the budget crises. In the meantime, we did not find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that Mr. Bush had told us were there. This was the whole reason we went to war. Back home the economy kept getting worse as more and more people lost their jobs.
The jobs that were promised by the tax cut never materialized and the rich got richer. More corporate scandals hit our country. More corporate exceutives got higher bonuses and "golden" parahutes as their companies failed. One of the leading companies that supply fuel to the American military was charging higher rates for fuel. Haliburton was providing fuel to our miltary, under a no-bid contract, at a rate higher that a local source. Mr Bush's vice-president was once the CEO of this company. Only after public outcry was this brought to a halt.
In his state of the union address of January 2004, Mr. Bush proposed making the tax cuts permanent and spending 1 billion dollars to promote marriage in the U.S. This marriage proposal was for heterosexual marriage only. Now he is proposing a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. He also said that liberal judges should not impose their will on their state.
In his proposed budget he allocates 1 billion for education but 1.7 billion out of education. This budget does not take into account the military spending in Iraq nor Afganistan. It does take into consideration medicare either. He also lobbied for and passed a presciption drug program for seniors. He said it would not cost more than 460 billion dollars to have this program. Estimates say now it may cost 540 billion and may be more than that. This bill does not allow Medicare to negoiate with drug companies for lower prices. He also proposed that the United States put a man on Mars by 2010. The cost of this would be over 1.5 trillion dollars. He again did not try to make this a world mission, but a United States mission. These budget numbers do not add up. He also wants to drill for oil in the Alaska wilderness and has started doing that. He wants to cut funding for the EPA and the Health and Human Services department. He also wants to allow immigrants, who are illegal, to get permits to work in the United States, but only for jobs that we can not fill. The job market at this time in American history has plenty of those type jobs, but none at a real living wage. The latest statistics show that 90,000 people are falling off the unemployment rolls every week because benefits are finished. These people are not counted in the latest uneployment statistics. Another proposal by Mr. Bush is that we spend billions on a missle defense shield. This technology is unproven and could lead to an escalation in the arms race.
If we look at Mr.Bush's overall time as President he has done very little to make us better. We need to take a very hard look at the last 4 years and ask ourselves, "Are we better off today than 4 years ago?"
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