October 02, 2003
Bush wants $600 Mil. tax dollars for reelection?
NY Times reports “The Bush administration is seeking more than $600 million from Congress to continue the hunt for conclusive evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons.” I thought weapons of mass destruction were now a moot point. What does it matter now whether those weapons are found or not? If they are found now, we will destroy them and spend $600 million tax payer dollars to find them. If they are found later, the new Iraqi government can destroy them at their expense. The only advantage to spending $600 million tax dollars to find them now is to Bush’s credibility. The only reason to shore up his credibility on this issue is get reelected.
This appears to be a very unethical way of circumventing the laws prohibiting the President from using tax dollars to reelect himself. But, reelection apparently is more important than using that $600 million dollars for education, prescription drugs, homeland defense, or a host of other needs which the tax payers of this nation have.
And what of this tax windfall for corporations? That will reduce tax revenues, increase the deficit and debt and tax payers will not only pay for the windfall but also for the interest on it for years to come.
Finally, there is this in the current headlines. Bush-Appointed Panel Finds U.S. Image Abroad Is in Peril. How much is this impaled American image going to cost in tax dollars and interest payments to rectify? More hundred's of millions, I am sure. And then it is not certain that our image can be corrected as long as George W. Bush remains in office. This is truly shaping up to be one of the most important presidential and congressional elections the American tax payer has faced since the year 2000.
Posted by David R. Remer at October 2, 2003 04:36 AMYou fail to consider that the first and third points are linked. While I’m not fan of the war, especially if the rationale behind it, the WMDs, were faulty—or wore, invented—I do see why a search for them, especially a thorough one is essential to the system in two ways:
1. It either proves Bush wrong (if we don’t find any, or even antiquated ones), that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and Bush & Blair are full of it and that our opinion abroad ought to be in peril, or
2. It proves Bush right. Which, even thought it will obviously have the repercussion of helping his approval rating, will validate the war and show that we are not morons for buying the rationale for war. It will, perhaps, also present the international community with a swift shutter-upper for having questioned us so vehmently.
It is truly flabergasting that there aren’t any WMDs yet—Hussein gased the Kurds and he blocked U.N. inspections for so many years, and there was that near-crisis involving VX gas in ‘98. Surely Bush wants to be validated but we, as a nation, should want to be validated too, whether or not what weapons we find justifies what we did.
Yes, there is the inevitable corollary effect that if we find WMDs we will claim we were right in our policy of pre-emption, but the main point, which is bluntly apparent if you aren’t cynical, is that our intelligence agencies didn’t completely fail us and we did have some reason to go to war. Whether or not we should have based on those reasons, no $600 million dollars will ever decided.
Face it we (well not me, I didn’t buy Bushes arguments for war from the beginning) were morons for buying into the notion that; a. there were these powerful and dangerous WMD lurking in the desert wasteland and urban jungles of Iraq just waiting to lay waste to America, and; b. for continuing to support Bush (he raise over 3 million in Chicago earlier this week), and risk further alienating the world. But hey, we’re the United States as long as we have the power, what do we care what the rest of the world thinks of us? And it we to elect a moron for President why its our Constitution right to do so!
Posted by: V. Edward Martin at October 2, 2003 11:39 AMWatchers and Bloggers,
I am the ghost of Scandals Past… I am here to remind you that I, a stained blue dress, was once the evidence for impeachment. WHen I was the life of the party, the budget was balanced, there was a budget surplus, there were strategic attacks on Iraq and Osama and America was clearly better off than it had been for over 40 years.
Yet, the greed of the men who wanted control could not be sastiated by “good times for all.”
So they dug me up and put a President on the spot for adultery. They couldn’t beat him on the job he was doing, so they went after the job he was getting.
Today, we have a President who is killing our solidiers daily by having them fight a war with no merit. He is blindly spending our money and foolishly wasting our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
There is no way in hell you should give him $600 million dollars to chase more boogeymen.
How about finding Osama? Maybe that’s where the effort should be.
He is a treacherous man, apparently surrounded by top advisors not adverse to treason.
He has done everything that *should* get a man impeached.
But unless he spills his seed or does some other immoral thing to piss off radio talk show hosts, he gets a free pass.
SBD
Posted by: StainedBlueDress at October 2, 2003 11:50 AMDoes anybody remember when GWB was the candidate that was going to restore dignity and honor to the Oval Office? It was only three years ago, but it must seem like ages.
I know that there are other independent thinkers, like myself, that took a huge chance on Bush in 2000. Hopefully we’re already to make sure that this shady administration pays the piper in “04.
This administration has done more to circumvent truth and honor since Boss Tweed and the Tamany Hall crew. It’s one thing to lie about a a stained blue dress; It’s quite another to mislead your own people and the rest of the world. However what gets me is that Bush is ready to ask the taxpayers to foot the bill for another wild goose chase just for the sake of his own glory, all the while insisting on tax cuts! This is utter nonsense, yet sadly it is just another in a seemingly endless streak of broken promises and distortions from a man who calimed to be a “uniter not a divider.”
Ry, I appreciate your argument. I disagree on the value to American image of finding the WMD, however. Even if they are found, the premise of invading Iraq based on its ties to the terrorists who impaled our country on 9/11 will continue to tarnish our image overseas for many here at home.
That is why I believe WMD are now a moot point. The people of America stood behing the invasion based on the perceived link between bin Laden and Hussein. That link has been refuted and the loss of credibility cannot be restored by finding WMD.
Posted by: David R. Remer at October 2, 2003 06:51 PM
