Re: BUSH: You VETS, RETIRED, POOR and SICK people will have to pay for Katrinas damag
The Army Corps of Engineers' budget has been the target of repeated, substantial budget cuts, with recent, deep cuts made to help fund the administration's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of American taxpayers. (
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm) This isn't to say that the Bush Administration are the only ones to blame for the extent of this disaster. The levee improvement projects in New Orleans have been in the works since LBJ was in office, I believe since 1965 to be precise, and because public works projects are often viewed as "pork", it is my understanding that the Corps has never received the amount of funding they've requested to complete the project.
Simply put, we cannot continue to borrow money at the rate that we do, which is approximately $1.66Billion per day. Right now, the United States, the "richest" country in the world, is in hawk to the tune of nearly EIGHT TRILLION dollars. (
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/) I have very little doubt though, that the "borrow and spend" policy of the administration and the Republican congress will continue until our debt exceeds the GNP. Americans are already feeling the pain of this policy in the form of a weakened dollar, causing many imported consumer goods to carry a much higher pricetag.
So what can be done to stop this? First, the administration needs to repeal its tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. Seeing as the average income of the top 1% of income earners is about $1,169,000.00, I don't think they'll miss the $50-80k very much. I'm quite sure that most would see our continued prosperity as a nation, and the rebuilding of the devistated area as being worth what is such a miniscule expense to them.
I would also like to recommend that the United States worry about the United States a little more, and worry about the rest of the world a little less. While I wouldn't suggest ending foreign aid programs altogether is a good idea, there are some that can be suspended or reduced without tremendous impact such as the billions we give to Israel every year. I'm sure there are numerous other examples of cuts that can be made so that all of the sacrifices don't have to be made by the poor, working class, and elderly of our own country.
I will say right off that I don't think US forces should have been deployed to Iraq in the first place. That aside, however, pulling out of the newly forming nation completely would be a huge error. What needs to happen is that efforts to train Iraqi personel need to be stepped up to a much faster pace so that we can begin scaling back the number of troops we have there within a reasonably short timespan. If we opt to wait until there is total stability there, it is likely we will never leave. At some point, the whole thing needs to be the Iraqi's fight, and in my opinion, the sooner this occurs, the better. In addition to this, it would certainly be nice if, at some point, the Iraqi government started using some of its oil wealth to cover some of the costs we've incurred while fighting for their freedom.