Money, money everywhere, but not a cent to spend: That’s what the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and his party is claiming. They forget President George W. Bush's reckless cutting of our country's income (the infamous Bush tax cuts) while placing the cost of two wars totally on credit cards. It seems that Boehner and company cannot remember anything older than the swearing in of President Obama. Therefore, if we are in dire financial straits it must be Obama and only Obama who is to blame.
George Santayana, a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist once said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
I remember.
Back in 2001 I wrote a piece for a local paper in which I tried to get a measure of the man who had recently become our President. , I redo the piece here in its entirety in hopes it will add to our progress. Maybe someone will forward it to Rep. Boehner.
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April 11, 2001-- "The Measure of a Man"
In the last presidential campaign, George W. Bush repeatedly stated his intention of securing a prescription drug program for the elderly. He also stated that excellence in education would be one of his top priorities, as would addressing crime, the environment and multitudinous other hot issues. In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Bush repeated his intentions.
From the moment the Supreme Court installed George W. in the Presidency, he began bad mouthing the American economy. Before ever laying a hand on the Bible, George W. was warning of an economic downturn with such doom and gloom the he seemingly convinced even Greenspan. Now that his self-fulfilling prophecy seems to be coming true, Bush is adamantly demanding economic relief in the guise of a multi-trillion dollar tax cut; a tax cut that will primarily benefit the top 1 percent of Americans. A full 43 percent of Bush's tax relief plan is targeted to those Americans with annual incomes exceeding $1 million.
How does Bush's tax cut benefit the rest of us? Married couples with a median combined income of $60,200 would get a tax cut of $1,095; the median income ($22,800) single person would pay $279 less while median income single parents would see their taxes decline by an average of $326.
Let us turn back to that one percent.
In terms of real dollars, the portion of tax relief slated for each of the nation's 1.3 million wealthiest citizens will amount to $56,300 per year. Spread over 10 years, this will amount to each of these persons paying $563,000 less in taxes for a combined total of $774 billion.
Will this $774 billion gift to the wealthiest Americans solve any of our nation's ills? I doubt it.
On the other hand, if Bush would forgo his tax cuts for millionaires he could easily pay for a prescription drug plan for seniors. The arithmetic is simple. Paying 80 percent of the cost of senior's prescription drugs with an out-of-pocket cap set at $4,000 and a $23 per month premium would set the government back $2,000 per senior citizen per year for a total of $885 billion over the next ten years. Bush's current offering of $48 billion for prescription drug coverage over four years or $150 billion over the next 10 is $735 billion short of adequate coverage.
Before President Bush can counter by saying that instead of drug coverage he is offering seniors a sizeable income-tax cut, let me point out that the median tax cut for seniors will amount to a meager $150 per year for couples or $101 per year for individuals. Try buying a prescription drug plan with that.
George W. would have us believe that he wants to give seniors meaningful assistance with the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs. However, what is increasingly clear is that he has little interest in doing so. Faced with a choice of giving 39 million senior citizens adequate prescription drug coverage or giving $563,000 to each of the nation's 1.3 million wealthiest individuals over the next ten years, Bush has clearly sided with the latter. Bush's tax cut will effectively remove a possible funding source for an adequate prescription drug program and hand the money to those who have no cause to worry about paying for their medicines.
As troubling as this decision may be, might it be only a pointer to a Bush/Cheney strategic plan?
Back in the 1980s, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted repeatedly against funding Head Start. When asked why, Cheney explained that because of President Reagan's large tax cuts to corporations and wealthy individuals (which he supported) there simply was not enough money for luxuries such as the Head Start program.
Dick Cheney is now Vice President. Does he think we have forgotten his tactics? Fact is many of us have. If this administration's gift to the wealthy is implemented there actually will not be enough money to pay for "luxuries" such as a prescription drug plan for the elderly.This leads one to wonder what "luxuries" the nation's millionaires will be acquiring with their lopsided share of Bush’s gift.
In April's edition of "The American Prospect", Lindsay Sobel wrote that the tax break for the top 1 percent amounts to $774 billion over 10 years. Here is a look at what else the country could do with that whopping lump of cash (based mostly on year 2000 expenditures).
New Teachers: Pay almost two million teachers' salaries for 10 years.
Student Aid: Increase the federal Pell Grant budget 88-fold or multiply federal student loans 18 times.
Class Size Reductions: Multiply federal spending for smaller classes in the nation's schools 193 times.
Preschool: Fund preschool for the entire nation's four-year-olds almost eight times over (based on a cost estimate by the Brookings Institution's Isabel Sawhill).
Crumbling Schools: Multiply federal contributions to school renovation by a factor of 59 (compared with the estimated expenditure for 2001).
Police Officers: Pay two million police officers' salaries for 10 years.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services: Multiply federal spending on substance abuse and mental health services 29 times.
National Health Research: Quadruple the National Institute of Health's budget or increase funding for the National Cancer Institute 234-fold.
Prescription Drugs: Fully fund a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit for senior citizens.
Family Support: Nearly quadruple the federal outlays for welfare, child care, and child support enforcement.
Housing Assistance: More than quadruple federal housing assistance.
Domestic Food Aid: Multiply spending on the supplemental food program Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) 19 times or almost quadruple the federal Food Stamp budget.
International Food Aid: Increase food assistance to foreign countries 97-fold.
Transportation Spending: Double the amount that Washington spends to support mass transit, highways, and aviation.
Natural Resources and the Environment: Triple the total expenditures on natural resources, pollution control, and Superfund cleanup.
Farm Support: Quadruple what the nation pays to stabilize farm income.
Family Tax Credits: Triple-fund the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor and the child tax credit.
Middle-Class Tax Cuts: More than double Bush's tax cut for the bottom 80 percent of Americans.
I have always held that the character of an individual should be measured, not by his/her words, but by his/her acts. Since this holds especially true for politicians, I am forced to wonder what George is up to. Can we believe him? What is the measure of the man?
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Indeed, what is the measure of the 2011 Congress and our current Chief Executive?
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