Recent remarks in forums here about politics has prompted me to explain why I, myself, am anti-Bush. Perhaps if the conservative minded people here know what I know, they will better understand liberal people's bias against Bush.
I have become more politically active this year because I am truly frightened and appalled at the actions of the Bush Administration, in affairs both domestic and foreign. I will go further: I am outraged.. Why? Without even getting into the issue of his foreign policies, the War on Terror, Afghanistan or Iraq, and don't get me started on the "POWs"
in Guantanamo Bay, I can make a case that Bush's domestic record is endangering the long term health and viability of our country's economy, natural resources, and people.
What I Am Talking About:
His programs:
No Child Left Behind is a terrible burden to our already stressed public schools. We don’t need more standardized tests, for Pete’s sake, we need more teachers! An interesting twist to this, He’s under funding the program too, by $26 billion since it was enacted. Anywhere from $84 to $148 billion dollars annually is what's needed to meet the goals of No Child Left Behind. He’s cut next year’s funding by $9.4 billion. How are our schools going to meet "unfunded mandates"?
Put Our Public Lands to Work policy has created outrageous projects that endanger our wild lands and wildlife. One example: his administration has approved extensive gas drilling on the Padre Island National Seashore, in Texas, which is the main U.S. nesting beach for the most endangered sea turtle in the world, the Kemp's ridley sea turtle. This jeopardizes 25 years of Park Service work that to bring back the turtle in the U.S. The drilling operations will destroy their nests.
His changing the rules:
His administration has changed the definition of wetlands, so that now, 20 million acres of formerly protected wetlands are now open to development. Then he announces initiatives that will protect 3 million acres of wetlands. This is not an improvement; this is three steps forward, seventeen steps back.
His Budget:
His budget cuts funding for AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club, job training, and more:
He has cut funding to first responders by $700 million. The result? Today, two-thirds of America's fire departments remain under-staffed. Do I need to point out who’s going to be needed if terrorists attack America again?
He promised to "restore and renew" our national parks, but in none of his budgets has he allocated operating budget increases. Not only has he not restored or renewed any park lands, he isn’t even adequately funding them. Our parks are understaffed, operating at a budget shortfall of over $600 million annually, and facing increasing costs due to Homeland Security directives to the tune of an additional $50 million, that they’re not getting.
He promised to eliminate the backlog of maintenance and repair projects in our National Parks, addressing the need to fix the deteriorating buildings, roads, bridges and sewer systems, which four years ago would have required an estimated $4.9 billion dollars to do. He has actually only spent some $300 million and has also failed to address the root cause of the backlog--insufficient operating and maintenance dollars.
His administration is actually allowing the defacement of our parks. The construction of cell phone towers in America's national parks has proliferated; there is now a cell tower that overlooks Old Faithful in our Yellowstone National Park.
His Administration fails to fully fund efforts to restore salmon on the Snake River in the Pacific Northwest. That program needs full funding—lack of funds could doom some salmon species to extinction.
His budget guts Head Start, the comprehensive educational, health, and nutrition services program for children that is only serving half of the children who are eligible for it.
His budget eliminates the Even Start program, which integrates early childhood education, adult literacy, and parenting education into a unified family literacy program.
In the face of skyrocketing college tuition and other costs, like textbooks, the Bush Administration has frozen funding for Pell Grants and cut funding for Perkins loans by nearly $100 million.
In the face of skyrocketing health care costs, he made a tax credit that helps to improve health care coverage for a whopping 5% of the 44 million uninsured Americans, and did nothing to make insurance more affordable for the middle class.
The budget also does nothing to help seniors lower their prescription drug costs.
Bad news for our nation’s veterans, he’s created new co-payments and enrollment fees that will cost veterans over $2 billion over five years.
His war, his tax cuts, and his buget have created a $521 billion deficit, the highest deficit in our nation’s history
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These are just a few of the reason's why I will vote anything but Republican this year.
I post this in the interests of creating a dialogue for what's going on this year that none of us can pretend doesn't exist, even here, the haven for homemakers.
