Bush Tax Cut Plan Is Not What America Needs

By James Donahue

A proposal by President George W. Bush to dump $150 billion in tax relief into America’s private coffers to “stimulate spending” is not a solution to the financial mess created by this administration.

It will appeal to the masses who are being manipulated once again to look upon Republicans as the good guys. That might work for people with short memories, who grab the few extra dollars returned to them on income tax time . . . which incidentally is rolling right up in our faces. But it won’t provide jobs, it won’t fix the failing economy, it won’t increase the value of the dollar and it won’t stop the slide occurring on the stock market.

The problem has been the Bush economic policy from day one. This crooked administration took a wonderful surplus left by the Clinton Administration and created a national debt of just over nine trillion dollars, mostly bombing sand dunes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and pouring billions of wasted dollars into bogus contracting companies hired to service those countries without proper government supervision.

In case readers need some kind of concept of the deficit nine trillion dollars amounts to, consider this. The estimated population of the United States is currently about 304 billion people. So every person’s share of that debt amounts to just over $30,000. And the debt is increasing on an average of $1.43 billion a day as that cursed war goes on.

The debt, and the outsourcing of jobs by American big business interests to other countries, our failed education system, our failed infrastructure, and the policy of the Bush Administration to pour billions of dollars in arms shipments and aid to other nations, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, has had the effect of slamming the US economy. We see the current housing crisis, the increased number of unemployed and homeless, the sliding value of the dollar and all of the indications of this nation sliding into a recession as the direct result of a very bad national economic policy that has been bleeding the system in favor of big business interests for too long.

Instead of raising taxes to pay off some of that debt, shutting down the war, and funneling some of the money being wasted on bombs, bullets and war material back into education, health and rebuilding the American infrastructure, Mr. Bush is advocating even more tax cuts. He also is asking Congress for more “tax incentives for businesses” in an effort to encourage new investments. He believes industrial growth will create new jobs and put more money in people’s pockets.

What is sad is that our working legislators are all clamoring to keep their jobs in what has turned into a harsh campaign year. Consequently, they won't be anxious to do what is right for the country, but rather what appeals to the voter's pocket books for the moment. Thus the Bush tax cut will probably get legislative support.

Such has been the bane of the capitalistic system. It thrives on encouraging people to spend beyond their means and keeping the wheels of business turning. But in a world now running out of natural resources, this must no longer be a way of life for Americans, or the rest of the world for that matter. It is time to rethink our way of life, and seek new methods of providing for the needs of all.

It is time for America to choose new leadership, and to be willing to turn in a new direction, adopting new economic policies before it is too late. We believe it is time to consider a more socialistic system of doing business, with the wealth of our nation and of all nations divided evenly among the people.

It is time for us to give serious consideration to socialized medicine, to restructuring our education system, and to start building public transportation systems that replace the car culture before we run out of petroleum. Utilizing valuable farmland to produce alternative forms of gasoline, while billions of people go hungry, is not the answer.

It is time for America to return to holding honest elections, putting the control of government back in the hands of the voters.

It is time for the crooks in Washington to be exposed and held accountable. It is time for impeachment hearings, and perhaps criminal charges brought against the people who led our nation on the malicious path it has taken for the past seven years.