Bush - The Undoing of America

Americans have a big mess to clean up and one they will need to get on with. There will be much pain before it is resolved. The Republican party recently upset over the defeat of a measure that would allow drilling in Alaska's parks struck back by killing a measure to provide relief to Americans facing higher than ever heating bills this winter.

Currently in a much needed effort to curb federal spending due to the outrageous costs associated with the invasion of Iraq, Republicans are considering cuts to programs providing health care to citizens. 45 million Americans still have no health care coverage at all and Social Security is in a mess. State and private pension plans are over extended and with GM looking at bankruptcy millions more Americans face loss of or seriously reduced pensions.

Homeland security though bloated with funds is making little headway in achieving its goals due to reluctance to cooperate and or a less than coherent plan. The Patriot Act is waiting for revision and may well be the beginning of America's recovery or its decline...

- Rick Barnes
____________

Casualties of the war in Iraq

My recent trip to America provided me a great deal more insight than I anticipated. All of it filling my head with ideas for future posts here.

The newspaper in Helena (pronounced Hell-en-AH), capital city for the State of Montana commissioned a poll that shows the some 49% of Montana voters feel dissatified or somewhat dissatisfied with George Bush. This state has been Republican for years. Bush can usually count on a warm welcome here. That's changing as the US is mired in the war in Iraq and consequential budget problems at home.

My friend, a solid up standing American middle class citizen asked me what were the casualties of the war in Iraq. It was easy to quickly reply with numbers of American war dead, the lose of respect internationally, the tens of thousands of dead Iraqi citizens. He acknowledged these facts but said the casualties were much higher at home.

How many Americans still have no health care? How many are going to be able to count on Social Security? How many Americans continue to lose their jobs so Wal-Mart can pay less for the product to be outsourced to China?

How many Local and State projects are on hold or cancelled because the federal government programs are being scrapped or tapped out?

The list goes on and gets quite frightening. The crumbling infrastructure, schools, highways, water works, sewage systems, power grids and health care will cost over 1.6 trillion dollars to address according to a report release earlier in 2005. A few years ago a report stated that fifty percent of America's bridges and overpasses were falling apart due to a lack of proper maitenance and repair. There simply is not enough money to do the upkeep. Do any of you see more money for these needed repairs coming with deficits hitting all time highs? Yesterday news breaks that an elevated highway in Pennsylvania collapsed.

The disaster in New Orleans and all along the gulf coast could have been significantly reduced if the government had heeded reports to do repairs on the levees holding the water back. The repairs were estimated in the five to ten billion dollar range. Just how much has been spent todate since the unrepaired levees failed during Hurricane Katrina. Now not only will the federal government be forced to pay for the damage in the tens of billions of dollars but have to add fifteen to twenty billion more to ensure the levees are up to holding back the water.

Who in disaster planning failed to understand that the oil refineries and the port of New Orleans handled twenty five percent of US oil imports? Didn't they know what would happen, that lost production would squeeze the whole country and thus affect prices all over the US and the world?

How many Americans can look forward to having access to health care anytime soon? We do know that some as Ted Koppel stated on Meet the Press, have the best Health Care in the world, but sadly he said most Americans don't.

George Bush's war in Iraq has created tens of millions of casualties far from Iraq, in places like Montana City MT, Collville WA, Clearwater FL, all across the country.

The mess is only getting bigger, the undoing of America is almost a certainty. Time is short and many stretchers are going to be needed for the wounded before they can begin righting what George Bush's war has created.

President, Republicans, Bush, Politics, News, Current Affairs, Iraq

This article was first posted on at Queer Thoughts. Its subject tends to lend it self better here.