Regional officials rip Bush task force for opposing Great Lakes aid

[Algorem]

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051105/NEWS17/511050399/-1/NEWS

Several Great Lakes leaders fired back this week at senior White House officials who have advised President Bush not to follow through with $20 billion for projects aimed at restoring the world's largest source of fresh surface water.

A joint letter sent to the White House yesterday by 41 members of Congress expressed "disappointment by the limitations" that several Cabinet-level members of a presidential task force have attempted to place on the Great Lakes restoration.

The letter, obtained by The Blade and signed by 11 U.S. senators and 30 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, said the Great Lakes region was "led to believe that the administration would consider some new budget initiatives."

"A serious consideration of the challenges faced in the Great Lakes region requires a commitment of federal resources," the letter stated...

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[lakeguy]

1. ah, who needs fresh water when you have guns?

[mod mom]

2. He probably has plans to sell the water rights and privatize it. It was

his father's MO.

Control the H2O-control the world!

[rodeodance]

4. The privitization of water is an issue that too few are talking about.

[Pathwalker]

6. Um, that's EXACTLY what he told Arizona voters on '04!!!

Two days after a campaign stop in Michigan, where he "promised" to keep the Great Lakes waters in the possession of those states bordering the Great Lakes, he went to Arizona and "promised" to make the Great Lakes states share their water with the people of Arizona. Michigan voters noticed.

[ovidsen]

3. What's the reaction in the Great White North?

Seriously, the US and Canada share the Great Lakes, not only the hemisphere's largest source of fresh water, but quite possibly the two nation's greatest shared natural resource. It has a major say in it's future.

I hope Ottawa joins this fight against the Chimpsters.

[dmr]

5. Just who are these 'advisors'? Lobbyists?

I bet the underlying scheme here is water diversion. There's a lot of potential profits to be made from those beautiful lakes - lakes, I might add, Bush* declared a National Treasure not so long ago.

[Lefty48197]

7. Bush flip-flops on promise

"The trio said in their letter that they were "deeply disappointed" by the presidential task force's recommendation. They said it was a far cry from what Great Lakes officials had been led to believe would happen when Mr. Bush announced in May, 2004 - six months before the presidential election - his plan for an historic Great Lakes restoration program."

I guess he gave all the money away to his campaign contributors through tax cuts.

[gratuitous]

8. So why is Ohio so relentlessly Republican?

They get screwed and tattooed at every chance by the Republicans, yet they troop off to the polls and vote for them anyway.

[Jose Diablo]

9. Maybe the voters in Ohio didn't vote Republican

Maybe they voted one way, but it was counted another way.

[gratuitous]

10. Perhaps the tide is turning in Ohio (at last)

But it's been a Republican stronghold for decades, despite the GOP's relentless hostility to so many of its citizens.