President Bush’s speech last night appears to be nothing
more than that, just a speech. He talked about a plan to rebuild the Gulf Coast
and restore normalcy to the lives of those affected. He gave a speech that some
have compared to a “FDR speechâ€ÂÂ.
A real question lies now in the sincerity of the President.
Why should we trust what he says? After 9-11 he promised this new cabinet level
department of Homeland Security that would be ready at a moments notice to
respond and save lives. Well we saw how much that promised paid off with
Katrina.
The President’s honesty track record is highly tarnished.
Just consider the subject of Iraq alone and the number of lies we have been
told. Saddam has WMD. Saddam was involved in 9-11. Iraq won’t cost us that much.
The list goes on, not to mention other lies and promises he has not kept such as
restoring accountability to the Oval Office and healing the great political
divide that is plaguing our nation.
If Katrina happened on September 11, 2001 instead of the
deadly attacks, then the President might have come out looking good after this
speech. Unfortunately he has a precedence of not following through and that
weakens the impact of his speech ten-fold.
The first thing I though when I heard President Bush talk
about the $200 billion the federal government will be spending to help rebuild
the gulf is “Wow -this from a conservativeâ€ÂÂ. Apparently I was not the only one
shocked by it. This mornings
New York Times has numerous key Republicans already questioning the
President’s plan. Heres some of the quotes out of the article:
“I don’t believe that everything that should happen in
Louisiana should be paid for by the rest of the country. I believe there are
certain responsibilities that are due the people of Louisiana.” – Senator
Tom Coburn (R-OK)“We know we need to help, but throwing more and more
money without accountability at this is not going to solve the problem,” –
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)“Congress must do everything the American people expect
us to do to meet the needs of families and communities affected by Katrina.
But we must not let Katrina break the bank for our children and
grandchildren.” – Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)
The problem is conservatives are not going to be willing to
throw money at the situation; something the President basically said would be
done. He said we would supply the money to the states affected but they are
responsible for it. This surely made all his conservative buddies cringe.
Another quote that was said in this same
New York Times article is as follows:
“We are not sure he knows what he is getting into,”
said one senior Republican official who requested anonymity because of the
potential consequences of publicly criticizing the administration.
That in itself is troubling. Seems more and more people are
scared to publicly question this administration. I thought this was the United
States of America – instead it seems as though we are moving into a state of
communism.
President Bush also offered to correct the growing poverty
this nation is plagued with. Sadly it took a historical natural disaster to wake
him up to the existence of this problem. Even worse is the fact that he seems to
think this problem only exists in the Gulf Coast.
It is wonderful the President wants to help get New Orleans
and the surrounding areas out of poverty, but he can not ignore the rest of the
country that suffers the same problems. Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles all have
areas of high poverty, and they all want to see something done about it.
Unfortunatley with our record deficit, cost of the Iraq war, cost of rebuilding
the gulf, and a President dead set against tax hikes this battle is over as soon
as it starts. The only way to fund a battle against poverty is by increasing
taxes on the upper income brackets. We know the odds of that happening are about
the same as the odds of Elvis actually being alive.
The President made an optimistic speech but when you sit
back and look at his promises and compare it to his track record and consider
the Republican controlled Congress, it is obvious that all we heard was a bunch
of broken promises. New Orleans will rise again and the people will move back
but it is going to be done so more on the state level than the federal level.
The biggest battle now lies in getting more help passed through congress,
something that Republicans up for re-election next year are surely ready to
attack.