Pillaging, looting - these guys are pros
Les Payne
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppay174431691sep18,0,3790922,print.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlinesSeptember 18, 2005
The $200 billion that President George W. Bush has earmarked for rebuilding the Gulf of Mexico region is chum for the big-ticket, GOP contributors. It will bring in the Great White contract-seeking sharks from Maine all the way to Iraq.
Stealing chapter and verse from Reagonomics, the Bush budgetmeisters insist on tax cuts for the wealthy without curtailing federal spending. In Reagan's case, as blueprinted by David Stockman, the money was lavishly spent on exotic cold-war military hardware such as the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative. The Bush administration has emptied the federal strongbox by leading the nation into a needless quagmire of a war in Iraq.
Still, the Bush administration is well on its way to weakening the government so dramatically that its successor will be hard- pressed to reverse the trend. This tilt toward federal bankruptcy, as with Reagan, will cripple the prospects for future social programs.
For now, the Bush administration will enable the oil companies to continue their looting, the rich to retain their fabulous tax breaks, and the mega- builders, such as Halliburton, to lap up the no-bid contracts and spiral up the cost overruns. This looting will never make it onto Fox TV, or much of the rest of the media for that matter.
God, what a country!