Now You See It, Now You don't

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May 10, 2001

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Setting a milestone for President Bush's tax relief agenda, the Senate on Thursday gave final congressional approval to a budget plan that lays the foundation for $1.35 trillion in tax cuts and puts limits on government growth.

The Senate voted 53-47 for the $1.97 trillion fiscal 2002 budget plan that sets up 11 years of tax cuts, the biggest in 20 years but still fall short of the $1.6 trillion in 10-year cuts Bush sought.

Budgets are supposed to be a frugal method to obtain and pay for all items necessary for the continuance of the general way of life for a particular person, family, city, state or country. They are, by and large, a compromise whereby something is normally sacrificed in order to continue with the absolute essentials as well as the possible addition of a few luxuries. budgets cannot be all things to all people for if they were, they would no longer be budgets, but instead, would merely become a grandiose shopping and wish list.

Enter one George W. Bush who's motto is, tell them what they want to hear and maybe they'll forget what his administration is really doing to them. Oh, it sounds good when Bush talks of a massive tax cut that's well over a trillion dollars. Most people can't even comprehend exactly how much a trillion dollars actually represents, but by God old George said he'd fix it so we'd get it. Well. We're going to get it all right, but not in the way most people expect.

If you're not in the top one percent of the yearly income of this nation, you'll see forty percent of the tax cut go to those who are. While the rich get richer, the average family will get only $500 per year. Most poorer Americans will actually receive nothing. That's the first way 99% of us are going to get it.

If the projected surplus doesn't quite materialize as expected, there is a good chance that old George's tax cut will do the same thing to this country that the one Ronad Reagan pushed through did to the country back in the 80's. For those of you who may not remember, there was increased inflation, a growing national debt and darker economic times. Bush did the same kind of financial hi-jinks while the Governor of Texas and now that state finds itself in a serious financial bind due to his policies. That's another way we're going to get it.

After a calculated campaign to talk down the economy, Bush finally got his tax cut pushed through with the help of five turn coat Democrats who joined all but two republicans to pass the Bush budget.

Using the old slight of hand deception (Now you see it....now you don't) of having us focus on one hand (the tax cut) while his other hand stabs us in the back seems to be the method of choice for the Bush administration. By doing so he assumes (correctly, so far) that we won't notice his other dirty deeds such as:

· Reneging on his campaign promise to curb the amount of CO2 which is pumped into our atmosphere. He then angered a large part of the world's leaders by saying he and the United states want no part of a meeting in Kyoto, Japan with an international organization dedicated to finding ways of slowing or reversing global warming. We get it again!!

· Pushing a policy of more energy production over more energy conservation. Of course energy to many means oil and Bush and his Vice President are in the hip pocket of the oil producers. His more energy edict is little more than a thinly disguised pay back to his oil cronies for their campaign donations which totaled many, many millions of dollars. This and his appointments of a number of pro oil people to Cabinet and other high profile government positions means uhh huh, you guessed it. We take it in the shorts again.

· Changing a Clinton administration directive on the amount of arsenic allowable in public drinking water. Bush's directive allows 500% more arsenic in the water supply than did the one put forth by President Clinton. Oops, looks like the Bushter got us again.

· Continuing to push for oil drilling in the protected Alaskan wilderness. Of course from a man who referred to all environmentalists as "Tree Huggers" and worse when he himself was in the oil business in Midland, Texas....this should come as no surprise. There he goes again.

· Promoting his pie-in-the-sky missile defense system which will cost billions and which many scientists think can never work within most of our lifetimes. His "got to have it" stance on missile defense completely ignores the very real possibility that if someone wanted to set off a nuclear explosion in this country, the preferred method of delivery might be a suitcase. Of course, based on his past history, if George ever did realize this, his next edict might be that we need to develop suitcase defense missiles.

Remember when Bush ran for office as a compassionate conservative? Translated this means, "I'm very compassionate towards you if you're a rich, white conservative."

For a man who did not get the popular vote in the Presidential election, who benefited from some dubious election skullduggery in the state of Florida, and was awarded the election on only a 5 to 4 vote by the Supreme Court, Bush now acts as if he won by a landslide and is governing under a popular mandate. He did not and he is not!! He got one more Supreme Court vote than did Al Gore, he did not win the popular vote and, after conducting a thorough investigation, a newspaper consortium headed by USA Today determined that, at best, the results of the Florida Presidential election are inconclusive. Translation....there is at least a 50/50 chance that George W. Bush was not actually elected President.

Bush has been in office only a little more than a hundred days and already, it seems like a thousand. The American public must suffer through three years, eight months and some odd days of his assault on the environment, his courting of the oil industry, his getting in bed with other facets of big business, his pandering to the wealthy at any cost, and his bumbling ways of governing this country.

I look forward to the elections of 2004 and day Bus is defeated in his bid for re-election. For on that day, we can all finally say, now we see him - now we don't!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken Kreps lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. He has written a number of published articles, essays and short stories, as well as numerous consumer and business pieces. Ken has also written scripts for Imagination Theater, an award winning audio drama series heard on over 150 commercial radio stations across the nation.

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