The optimism of President Bush’s speech to the nation Thursday night surely struck many hurricane victims as premature, given that he was speaking from a ghost town in which corpses are still floating in the open. But as the president at last showed a glimmer of his post-Sept. 11 leadership, he said much of what needed to be said — taking responsibility for the inadequate federal response and vowing to help residents and the region both now and long term. His unprecedented reconstruction program and commitment to review urban disaster plans nationwide are laudable. But it will take more than promises to restore the faith of many Americans in their government’s ability to come to the rescue when disaster strikes.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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35 Comments
IT WASN’T LEADERSHIP!It was just more ass covering, after the fact.
Didn’t everbody notice the look on his face when he “accepted responsability”. His facial expressions and body language told what he was really thinking.(IT AIN’T MY FAULT)
60 billion dollars.
That in addition to 1-2 billion a week in Iraq. Massive tax cuts to the rich.
Let’s see, that comes to, whoa!, historical high unsustainable debt.
GW is just great at spending money he doesn’t have.
And if he didn’t spend it you’d say it was just because Bush and all Republicans hate black people. Seriously, people. Your Bush hatred is laughable. Seek help. Or jump off a bridge. Life must be pretty unbearable for you.
Well jimmy,You’ve done your best to make it unbearable, but were still here. Your best just isn’t good enough!When every speech Bushllit makes boils down to “Read my lips- more new debt,” we get pretty damn tired of you borrow-and-blow republicans. You start a war for no other reason than to get back the Bush family jewels, you break all previous records for pork-barrel spending, you cut taxes for the rich, reduce the economy from record surplus to record debt almost overnight, and when a natural disaster hits, you want to print more money to cover your ass! And then you have the gall to call US liberal? You’re the ones maxing out the nation’s credit cards!
JB you sound knowledgable enough to turn around this unfounded Bush hatred. Please list all the good things that his administration has done for us. We already know the bad. That way when the good far outweighs the bad I will logically decide my attitude is uncalled for.
Jim B., I realize it’s going to take quite some time to list all those good things. I’ll check back tommorrow. Thanks.
This is just too good to pass up. Read it and weep, Bush haters. The ABC News reporter tried to coax out some anti-Bush controversy, but fell on his sword.
http://newsbusters.org/node/1201
Surely someone in this well informed group can explain to me how Bush cut taxes for the rich. I hear this all the time, but am at a lost to see how it was done. Did he just cut the top bracket, no. Did he increase credits for the rich, no. I just can’t fiqure out how it was done.
Darrell–are you saying that Bush hasn’t cut taxes for the rich?
OMG, no wonder you people keep voting Republican. You can’t even see who keeps hitting you over the head.
Darrell, if you don’t know already that Bush cuts taxes for the rich, you are too ignorant to even argue with.
As for Jimmy, at least he’s some kind of an investment broker, so you know where he’s coming from.
Galahad,
I am not asking you to argue, I am asking you to point out where taxes for the rich were cut. Surely one of such great wisdom knows and isn’t just spinning liberal retroric.
Jimmy–
Bush needs to use the feds to help NO, no question.
But he needs to do it on a pay as you go basis.
This is what he doesn’t do.
You never did respond when I showed that without the social security trust fund (which you claim doesn’t exist), Bush’s debt is at an all-time historical high relative to GDP.
These are the facts the Republispiners don’t want you to know.
Too easy, Darrell. Look it up yourself.
Go to google.com. Go to “advanced serch.” Type in “exact phrase” Bush tax cuts for the rich.
Then you can tell me if you want to . . .
BTW, Darrell, just for starters, Dick Cheney earned 36 million dollars in 2000. Thanks to income tax cuts he gave himself that year, he save 6 million dollars.
How much did you make last year, Darrell? And why do you think your interests lie with Dick Cheney’s?
Checked your search, and I am afraid I don’t see how the people that pay the largest amount of tax wouldn’t get the largest total dollar refund. Let’s see if I pay 1,000,000 in taxes and my tax goes down to 900,000, and you who paid 1,000 and now pay zero I got the biggest cut, right? Even though mine tax dropped 10% and yours dropped 100%.
Great logic, Darrell. Since it’s SUCH a fantastic deal for poor and middle class people, I got an idea.
I’ll take the rich man’s salary and pay the rich man’s taxes. He can have my salary and pay my really low taxes.
Who’s gonna take me up on that? Let’s see those hands?
BTW, what you’re doing is a really old scam there, D.
I’ll give you a million billion percent increase of zero. It’s still zero.
A large percentage increase of a small number is still a small number. That’s why you need not get alarmed when the scare-mongers say that “drinking tap water raises you chances of getting pitutary gland cancer by 3 times.” Your chances of getting that type of cancer are so low that even if you multiply it by 3, it’s still really really low.
An increase of 6 robberies to 12 is a doubling of the robbery crime rate, but most people wouldn’t see that as a crime wave.
Similarly the filthy stinking rich dude who saves 15 percent on his taxes and in the process now has 100,000 dollars (or twice the median income of an average wage earner) is still saving a helluva lot of money.
“Similarly the filthy stinking rich dude” Wow, that’s a little outlandish even for you. The fact is there are more millionaire democrats than republicans in congress, so don’t you think your comment should read “Similarly the filthy stinking rich republican dude”. Wouldn’t want to tick off any filthy stinking rich liberal dudes, now, would we?But more to the point: Every millionaire hardly qualifies for “filthy stinking rich”. There are rich people out there who got their money the old fashion way: they earned it. And there are plenty rich people out there who are great philanthropists, both democrats and republicans…as well as some who find politics boring.Your apparent distaste for anybody labeled “rich” has blinded you to the fact that if there wern’t any rich people, we probably wouldn’t have good jobs available.Trickle down economics works, J.F.K knew it and so did Reagan. But you don’t want a trickle, you want a flood, controlled by big government. I want them to deliver my mail and protect my borders…well, one out of two ain’t bad.
JM,To quote Molier, “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.” Or a whole lot of little ones!Yeah, I was around for the first go-round of tricky-trickle, and what trickled down on most of us may have been golden, but it wasn’t spendable!And no, not every millionaire qualifies as “filthy stinking rich dude,” but I did work for a number of them, and it was easy to see how most of them got that way! They’d try to cheat me out of anything, any way they could. It was much easier to do work for middle-class and poor people. I’d rather give them a price break and take payments than try to collect from some of those rich crooks. At least I’d get paid!
Hey, I’m one of those who didn’t get any income tax cut at all.
Of course, I don’t pay any income taxes, either.
If I were a democrat I’d blame Bush for the “unfairness of it all”.
….
Oh rats, somebody beat me to it.
Well I got a nice income tax refund last year from the Feds and I spent it wisely, paying my Kansas Income Tax plus a little more. Anyone else have this problem? I think I should move about 50 miles south.
Jed,Your liberal card is showing through big time. You would rather work for middle class or poor people? Laudable, but how are you going to get paid? “I feel your pain” stickers? A lot of nourishment there.I got the distinct feeling there is just a wee bit o bs in your comments: “but I did work for a number of them, and it was easy to see how most of them got that way! They’d try to cheat me out of anything, any way they could.” All I missed were the tears.I suppose you could apply the same nonsense to any race, religion, yadda, yadda. Not too credible, Jed.
JM–After wading through your post which mainly says I shouldn’t criticise the rich (I wasn’t criticising them–I would like to be filthy, stinking rich too), you make one arguable point, trickle down economics works.
Except it doesn’t work, JM. Reagan/Bush cut taxes and ran the national debt to (then) historical highs. Clinton raised taxes and reduced the national debt and cut the poverty rate from 16 percent to around 10. The stock market rocketed upward as unemployment fell.
GW is back in and cutting taxes is about all he’s done (except for gutting gov’t safeguards against monopolies and pollution and starting a needless war). Poverty has risen four years in a row, national debt is higher than it was under Clinton, Reagan and almost twice as high as under Carter. The DOW Jones which stood at 11,000 when Clinton’s term ended, ended the week at 10,500 after nearly FIVE YEARS of no growth. Nobody would call this economy as good as what we had under Clinton.
******
Trickle down economics–the insane notion that the best way to feed sparrows is to run the grain through the intestines of a draft horse first . . .
Trickle down economics does work. J.F.K. proved that when he instituted the first really big drop in taxes “To the rich”. That is an unarguable fact.If you’re not indicting the rich as a whole, than maybe you should so state it. It is rather blatant in your post, bro. Your post reads like a general condemnation of anybody rich. I merely pointed out the obvious discrepancies. “filthy stinking rich dude” is a general statement, isn’t it? What else could it convey?It would be nice to be “fitly stinking rich, but I’m not. Clintons raising taxes had the affect it had because the economy was booming, not because he raised taxes. Economy 101: When the economy is booming, more people pay more taxes, thus the government takes in more money.I thoroughly disagree with what Bush had done to this country, and the national dept is ridiculous, caused mainly by 9/11 and the two stupid wars being waged. Katrina, and its aftermath, will cost this country 200 billion dollars. WE are in trouble, money wise, and raising taxes is in order, but flailing the rich ain’t going to lower the dept. controlling the cost of government will.How much of OUR money is thrown out the window? Answer: Billions…in subsidies, health fraud, pork, government agencies not needed anymore (Tennessee Valley Authority for one). Bloated government programs and agencies. And yes, stupid wars.This rich bashing by you liberals is really getting to be old hat. Find some way to improve government and quit whining about “rich people”.Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the power is in Washington; Both Republican AND Democrat. The problem for the Democrats is that the Republicans know how to deal with it, the Liberals just know how to whine about it.You want fair? Vote for people who can really change the status quo, not the morons running the country now. Whining about the rich sure ain’t going to accomplish that.
JM, I call them “filthy, stinking rich” because I want to emphasize that they don’t need help from the federal gov’t. Ted Turner is filthy stinking rich and he’s a decent guy. So’s George Soros.
I agree about JFK. Let’s return to the tax rates he imposed. That’ll be about ten times as much as the rich are paying now.
Obviously, you CAN tax the rich too much. But that’s the not the problem now, by the wildest stretch of the imagination . . .
Being filthy stinking rich is OK of you are a wacked out radical socialist who try’s to use your billions to affect US elections in your favor.
That’s rich.
Galahad,”JM, I call them “filthy, stinking rich” because I want to emphasize that they don’t need help from the federal gov’t.” Dang, why didn’t I see that?
Heckler,What the heck was that?
J M
Galahad said that Ted Turner and George Soros were both filthy rich and they were decent guys.
I was trying to express how astounded I was that Galahad knew of a couple of rich guys who were decent guys. I guess that I shouldnt have been astounded by the fact that they were about as far left as it’s possible to be.
Ya’ll fergot “The Fixer” mini-me dada…Ross Perot! Now THERE was someone you could put your trust in (chuckle…chuckle).Anyone know what happened to him? Hogs eat him?
The question is “what is the tax rate for the rich that is best for all in our country.”
I regret that I used a common phrase that conservatives could seize upon to ignore this central question.
When the tax rate on the rich is so low that it raises the national debt to unsustainable levels, that it increases poverty, that it doesn’t pay for policies (like the Iraq war for oil) which benefit the rich, that increases poverty rates and weakens the economy (check the Dow), then tax rates are too f*cking low.
That’s what we have now.
BTW, JM & Heckler, why are you so eager to rush to the defense of “the rich?”
You aren’t rich. You aren’t even close. You don’t even know any rich guys personally.
I’m not talking about the man who lives down the street in the nicer house than yours.
I’m talking about the CEO of WalMart who makes more in two weeks than one of his floor workers makes in a LIFETIME.
I’m talking about Dick Cheney and his nine houses and three yachts.
Their interests are not your interests, or mine or anybody else you know.
But answer the tax question first and don’t skip it this time . . .
JM,Hey man, the poor and middle class people pay me. Sometimes they have to make payments, but they never, not one of them, failed to pay. It was the stinking rich bastards that refused to return calls, had their secretaries tell me they were “out of the country,” “accidentally” forgot to sign checks, etc. All this over amounts that wouldn’t cover an evening’s dinner and bar tab a the country club! I checked with others who had done business with them, and they’d gotten the same treatment. So now I don’t return their phone calls. I’d rather work for someone who treats me with the same respect they expect.
Jimmy, still waiting for the “good” list……..
Tracy,Keep your shirt on; it takes a while to fire up the electron microscope jimbo needs for his search.
Jed–
Hehe, ya got that right.
There’s an old joke that goes something like–
When you hang out with educated people, you pick up an education. When you hang musicians, you pick up musical talent. When you hang out with athletes, you pick up an interest in sports.
And when you hang out with rich people, you pick up the BILL!