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GIMME A TRILLION BUCKS NOW. Trust Me. I Spent the Last Trillion in Iraq. What Can Go Wrong?
This entry was posted on 9/22/2008 11:06 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
It wasn't that the Bush administration asked for the trillion bucks to fix yet another mess they've gotten us into that bothered me so much.
It's HOW they went about, not just asking for it, but DEMANDING it before DISASTER and CHAOS and HORROR and RUINATION occurred. Demanding it NOW. "Clean." No strings attached.
Not just demanding a trillion bucks. But demanding that one Bush appointee-man be in charge of spending it. No questions asked, by Congress or anybody else.
Trust me, he said.
But here's what REALLY worried me: It was the roll-out.
Because we've seen this song-and-dance before, folks.
For those of you with short memories, let me refresh them:
Back in 2002, the Bush administration began to make a "sudden" and "urgent" request for war with Iraq. The primary selling-point was a closed-door meeting with ranking congresspeople, in which the Bush administration laid out its case that Saddam Hussein represented a clear and present danger to the U.S. and that if we did not act NOW to stop him, he would soon develop an atomic bomb and there would be "mushroom clouds," as our National Security Advisor at the time, Condoleeza Rice said.
Then came the media roll-out. Every top warmonger in the administration fanned out to saturate Sunday morning talk shows and news programs. Media moguls were courted like lovers, given special access to big stories, and denied access altogether if they dared print any objections to the Bush threats.
Republican congressmen and women, and more than a few cowed Democrats, as well as administration spokespeople including Dick Cheney, stepped up the terror-threat alerts that stated, flat-out, that Hussein had been directly responsible for the attacks on our soil on 9-11 and would do so again if he were not stopped.
Anyone who questioned these urgent calls for immediate action were shut down as being unpatriotic, or worse, being reckless with our national security.
The consequences of war were laid out in flowery, gentle terms--all about celebrating Iraqi people pouring out into the streets to toss flowers at our troops and greet us as liberators. Two months after the invasion, Bush did his whole "Mission Accomplished" campaign commercial strut in his little macho flight suit.
Pundits gushed.
When the insurgency reared its ugly head almost immediately, Bush administration spokespersons denied it, discounted it, swore that it was "a few dead-enders" and in its "final throes."
Now, six years later, we know beyond a questionable fact that the entire thing was lies, lies, and more lies.
And six years later, we're still fighting and dying in Iraq and our country has borrowed close to a trillion dollars to pay for it from nations just barely our allies.
Pay attention now...
Suddenly there's this catastrophe--ever notice how, during Bush's entire two terms, his administration has lurched from crises to catastrophe and how often they've said, "Nobody could see this coming" when in fact, many many people did?
Anyway, there's a new sudden "unexpected" catastrophe.
First thing, a Bush administration representative meets behind closed doors with a congressional delegation and, again, immediately scares the holy living shit out of them if they don't ACT NOW, IMMEDIATELY, EXACTLY AS THEY ARE TOLD TO DO!!!
Frightened congresspeople and administration spokespersons fan out across the news airwaves and Sunday morning talk shows, predicting horrors beyond imagining if we don't:
(a) trust the Bush administration
(b) do it now
(c) lay out a trillion bucks as if it were pocket change
Anyone who does not get on board the fear-train is upbraided as someone who fails to fully appreciate and understand the breadth and scope of the threat, someone who would risk the financial security of the entire country--nay, the very planet--in order to discuss this demand for, oh, I dunno, a few days to think it over? Talk amongst ourselves?
NO! Can't WAIT a few days!
Need a "clean" bill!
Need it NOW.
But don't take my word for it. Here is a piece from New York Times economist, Paul Krugman, in today's "Cash for Trash" op-ed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22krugman.html
"Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson’s $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system “cash for trash.” Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.
"There’s justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself — and for his successor — to deploy taxpayers’ money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn’t make sense.
"Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he’s a smart guy who knows what he’s doing. But that’s only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half — a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis “contained,” and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes — justifies the belief that he knows what he’s doing? He’s making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us."
Guys, I'm not saying that the Bush administration has not flat-out bankrupted this country. I've been warning my conservative friends of this for many years. And I'm not saying the situation isn't volitile and in need of immediate attention.
BUT BE FOREWARNED.
Every time the Bush administration does one of its urgent media roll-outs for yet another self-caused catastrophe and goes out of its way to railroad a cowed congress and a befuddled American people...you can bet it's just another disaster in the making for all of us.
I'm no economist, but I fail to see the harm in congress's slowing down for a few days to seriously consider the bill, its implications, and how best to use all of our hard-earned taxpayer money.
(For one thing, and this may be a silly question, but since it was ballooning mortgages that caused this problem in the first place, why not just roll back the interest to what the homeowners were paying before they got into trouble? The banks would still make money, the homeowners could keep their homes. Why force them into foreclosure and sell the property for a loss?)
Right now you can bet that any rammed-through program that comes from this bunch is heavily favored to the very rich and to corporate interests.
This race to get it done without oversight is just a typical Bushian tactic of using emotional blackmail to keep our elected officials and our media from asking the tough questions that need to be asked to protect us from their own excesses.
We've already given them a trillion bucks.
They spent it in no-bid contracts to their private-contractor buddies who proceeded to squander it in ways completely devoid of any oversight or accountability in a war that never should have been waged in the first place.
Now they want another trillion for yet another bright idea their neocon little minds can come up with. They're trying to bully us to get what they want. Again.
Slow down. Ask the questions. Get it right this time.
We deserve at least that much.
And they don't deserve a damn thing.
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