Reply #2: First thing I thought of -- "When Ignorance Isn't Bliss" [View All]

[redqueen]

This article was one I'll never forget... David Sirota did the legwork to provide a few telling examples of the disconnect between the right's rhetoric and reality.

http://www.alternet.org/story/18929">http://www.alternet.org/story/18929

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1. Pro-Defense: Facing increasing violence in Iraq, military commanders in Iraq asked Congress and the president to immediately fill shortages in protective body armor. Just four months after the president signed another massive tax cut for the wealthy, up to 51,000 troops were still not properly equipped for combat, with many begging friends and family at home to buy them makeshift armor. Responding to the crisis, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) sponsored a bill to immediately plug the shortage. He was voted down (Senate vote #376, October 2, 2003), and the results have been catastrophic. As a recent study circulating in the Army notes, up to one in four casualties in Iraq was due to poor protective gear.

2. Compassionate: With U.S. troops struggling to secure Iraq last summer, Congress and the president repeatedly praised soldiers' efforts and promised to provide them the best facilities possible. Yet, the White House budget that year proposed to cut $1.5 billion out of military housing. Representative David Obey (D-Wisc.) came up with a simple solution: Slightly reduce the proposed tax cuts on the 200,000 Americans making $1 million a year to fill the budget gap for the troops and their families. Instead of getting an $88,000 tax cut, millionaires would receive an ample $83,000 tax cut, and the troops' housing would be maintained. Obey's bill was voted down (House vote #324, June 26, 2003).

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4. Patrotism: As the recession reached new lows in December 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives considered whether to continue rewarding companies with taxpayer subsidies, even if those same companies use those subsidies to send U.S. jobs overseas. The question was simple: During a jobs and deficit crisis, should the U.S. government's Export-Import Bank continue giving most of its $15 billion a year to subsidize a slew of Fortune 500 companies that are reducing their U.S. workforce? But when Representative Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a measure to curb the government handouts to corporate job exporters, he was voted down (House vote #120, May 1, 2002).

5. Clean Government: Halliburton, the oil company Vice President Dick Cheney ran, continues to receive billions in no-bid government contracts for work in Iraq, even after it was cited for overcharging taxpayers and providing unsanitary facilities to U.S. troops. At the same time, Cheney is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation from the company and holds roughly 400,000 Halliburton stock options. More troubling, internal memos now show that Cheney's office was directly coordinating Halliburton contracts. When the Congressional Research Service ruled the situation represented a "potential conflict of interest," the Senate considered legislation that would have forced the termination of the Cheney-Halliburton relationship. It was voted down (Senate vote #386, October 16, 2003).