This should be required reading for Democrats who want nothing but the facts.
Paul Begala, a counselor to President Clinton
and one half of the political powerhouse consulting team
of Carville & Begala, did a tremendous job
of taking Bush and Company's own words and throwing them in their faces.
The copious footnotes back up Begala's arguments. He quoted from sources progressive, liberal, conservative, and nonpartisan.
Every page is chock full of goodies, scandal after
scandal that the corporate press in this country turns a blind eye to
as they do the bidding of their Republican bosses.
Begala starts off by reminding us of just how
good we had it during the Clinton years. Upon taking office in January
1993,
there were close to 10 million Americans who
were unemployed. Clinton, through sound fiscal discipline, created
22.88
million jobs during his administration, "(m)ore
jobs than Presidents Reagan and Bush Senior together created in twelve
years.
And 91 percent of the Clinton jobs were in the
private sector."
Reagan lifted a whopping 77,000 Americans out
of poverty (according to the Bureau of the Census) while Clinton got 8.2
million Americans out of poverty. 0.24
percent compared to 21 percent of the poverty rate. You be the judge.
Begala reminds us what made Clinton's economic
policies so successful: He invested in people. "President Clinton's
budgets
were designed to help people make the most of
the new opportunities, with a heavy emphasis on education." (Page 10)
Begala reports that under President Clinton:
"US exports of goods and services
grew by 72 percent - to top $1 trillion for the first time . . . jobs that
paid as much as
16 percent above the national
average."
"He created Empowerment Zones to
spur local community planning and economic growth in distressed communities
through
tax incentives and federal
investment. Thirty-one Empowerment Zones and 95 Enterprise Communities
leveraged over
$10 billion in new private
sector investment, creating thousands of new jobs." (Page 11)
Clinton presided over the
smallest government workforce since JFK, trimming the federal government
by 270,000 positions.
He also trimmed government
spending "as a share of the economy" to just 18 percent, compared to Poppy's
21.2 percent.
Then along came the trust funded rich kid who
squandered away 8 years of peace and prosperity, economic stability, and
the
largest federal surplus in history, $281 billion,
in record time. Begala summed up the sick joke that was known as
the 2000
presidential election in two short sentences,
"Rather than do the math themselves, the media behaved like high-school
kids
who'd rather join the rich and popular kid in
mocking the brainiac. Few held Bush's feet to the fiscal fire."
The many fiscal foul-ups from the MBA court-appointed
president are just too numerous to mention here. Many times we have
heard that Bush's tax cuts are for the wealthiest
1 percent of families in this nation. 37.6 percent of his tax cuts
are aimed towards
that needy group of people, cuts that will cost
this country $507.6 billion over the next ten years, according to the Congressional
Budget Office, the nonpartisan investigative
arm of Congress.
Under Bush, the top 1% needs that $1,021 a week
to make ends meet while the rest of us can make do with anywhere
between $1.27 - $11.54 a week.
Bush's tax "cuts" will deplete the Social Security
Trust Fund in record time but Bush doesn't see how the federal government
is responsible for overseeing Social Security.
"They want
the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind
of federal program."
- Governor Dubya, St. Charles, Missouri, November
2, 2000 (as reported in the November 3, 2000 Washington Post)
Bush wanted to repeal the Alternative Minimum
tax cut for corporations as part of an economic stimulus package.
Not only did
he call for a repeal of the tax, but he wanted
it repealed retroactively. The law was enacted in 1986 to ensure
that corporations
"pay a minimum amount of federal income tax despite
qualified deductions." Bush wanted his campaign contributors to be
able
to get back 15 years of taxes. "The thought
of sending you back some of your past taxes never crossed his mind."
Thank you, Paul.
Then again, none of us have contributed to Dubya the way his pet corporations have. Since 1993:
- Enron's
board of directors and political action committee has given $2,052,418
to Bush and the GOP
- Chevron
has given more than $1,154,429 to Bush and "other key Republicans."
- Ford has
given $682,698 to Bush and the GOP
- General
Electric has given $693,792 to Bush and the GOP
- General
Motors has given $441,950 to Bush and the GOP
- Kmart
has given $599,262
As the saying goes, "Money talks and bullshit walks."
While Bush helps out his corporate friends, he
has done a dandy job of screwing the working sap.
To make his friends even wealthier, Bush has
had to cut funding for:
Even Start, Head Start, he has stopped the Child
Credit tax, he had $278 million trimmed from training health professionals,
he has put a serious dent into the initiative
to put more cops on the streets, his budget eliminated the $60 million
grant for the
Boys and Girls Club and cut funding for graduate
medical education at children's hospitals.
There have been many readers of Bartcop who want
to know why Martha Stewart is being pursued with a vengeance yet
Ken Lay continues to sink his toes in the sand
at the local tax shelter. I found out the answer on page 100.
Under the
section titled, "A Patron of the Art of Politics,"
Begala fills us in:
"In point
of fact, Enron was the single largest patron of George W. Bush's improbable
political career . . . Ken Lay
donated $122,500 to his campaigns for governor,
and Enron was a "Gold" sponsor for both of Bush's gubernatorial inaugural
committees - a designation that cost a total
of $100,000." (From November 30, 2001 USA Today and the Texas State Archives)
And when
Dubya decided to run for president, Kenny-Boy was there again. Enron
gave $1,328,290 in total to Bush
and the GOP, and Lay himself was a Bush Pioneer,
raising at least $100,000 for the Bush presidential campaign. Lay
was
also a co-chairman of an April 2000 RNC gala
tribute to Bush, meaning that he raised or contributed at least $250,000
for that event."
Enron did donate money to the Democrats in the
2000 elections. It gave $152,139 to Dems running for federal office
as opposed
to $1,324,315 to Dubya's presidential campaign.
Dubya and Lay were so close; Bush dubbed him "Kenny-Boy."
This association Begala traces back to 1986, when "Bush's oil
company was a partner of Enron in an oil ell
back in 1986. At the time, Bush's firm was known as Spectrum 7, and
it was in trouble.
The New York Times says it 'was struggling to
stay afloat during a collapse in the world oil prices.'"
"Enron rode
to the rescue. Although Enron had only been formed in 1985 (by the
merger of Houston-based Houston
Natural Gas and Nebraska-based InterNorth), within
a year it was in business ... with George W. Bush."
Begala offers evidence to suggest that Dubya was
even a lobbyist for Enron. In 1989, the Argentine newspaper, La Nacion,
reported that George W. Bush had met that year
with Rodolfo Terrango, who was the minister of Public Works and Services
in the government of President Raul Alfonsin.
La Nacion said they met in Argentina to discuss oil investments."
"Terrango
said he received a telephone call from Dubya. The son of the vice
president of the United States of America
was calling the Argentine minister of public
works and services to pressure him, in the words of the Nation - 'to award
a contract
worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Enron,
an American firm close to the Bush clan.'" (The Nation, 11/21/94)
Terrange
went on to say, "I felt pressured. It was
not proper for him to make that kind of call." (Ibid.)
Begala does a fantastic job of spelling out how
one Dick Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, set up Halliburton "subsidiaries"
(read: tax shelter)
in Iraq, Iran, and Libya and doing millions in
business with them. He also points out that Cheney made $45 million
dollars as CEO while
laying off 10,100 workers and cutting health
benefits for retirees of Halliburton (you'd think someone who suffered
through heart problems,
gout, and cancer would have a bit more compassion
but this is another one who wouldn't know a hard day's work).
And for those Bush apologists and the gasbags screaming about "compassionate conservatism," consider this:
(Treasury Secretary Paul) "O'Neill criticized
efforts by Democrats to help workers unemployed in the wake of September
11
subsidize their health-insurance premiums with
tax credits. O'Neill said the Democratic plan, 'was a huge reach
and change in
policy, putting the federal government into a
position where it's now going to create a new entitlement class.'" (Page
154)
That, ladies and gentlemen, is a fine example of "compassionate conservatism."
Bottom line: "...once you realize how massively
incompetent Bush and his economic team are, you'll sleep like a baby -
waking up
every two hours to cry and wet the bed."