Am I just overreacting or is our government really this bad?

Maestro

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Tue Jul-25-06 09:20 PM
Original message

Am I just overreacting or is our government really this bad?

Edited on Tue Jul-25-06 09:21 PM by Maestro

I am not a particularly smart person. I am what I would call of average intelligence and I think that there are plenty more like me, but if there are, why are they not as upset as I am about what is occurring nowadays?

I might split this up over the next few days because I am have many issues with the current state of our nation. I'll start with the economy.

Attacking the middle class is the republican mantra that is spoken in their cigar smoke filled back rooms. The tax cuts only help the rich. We have heard this before and it is true. I did pay less in taxes but the other cuts didn't benefit me at all as far as I can tell.
Republicans do not care for middle class. Bush is bad for the economy, period. He apparently wants to “stay the course” even though the plan is severely flawed and his tax cuts a bust. More than half of the 2004 deficit was on account of the tax cuts. He has just destroyed the fiscal health of the nation in three years. Of course he relies on 9-11 and terror as an excuse. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002006779_williams17.html

Anyhow, the middle class is hit hard as you can see by this article. Even worse is how badly black men have been affected. He did try to make amends by speaking at the NAACP conference finally. Way to go George. It took you long enough.

What about Hispanics? As of 2004 after three years of poor job creation, more jobs began to be created for Latinos but with lower wages. Again, it goes back to the attack on the middle class and wages. http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=45

Let’s look at the pesky minimum wage. When you account for inflation it is the lowest in 50 years! Some say 60 years. (see link below) But yet, the rethug bozos won't raise it.

Read the press release here. I suppose that the do-nothing Congress and rethugs want to leave that to the states. Why would they want to try to help us?

What is more disgusting is that the do-nothing Congress gives itself raise after raise even though the US is saddled with the largest national debt ever and no minimum wage increase.
Here is a good Helen Thomas article about it along with a good one by the AFL-CIO and a few others.
Helen smack down

http://blog.aflcio.org/?p=102

Who cares about the debt

http://senssensibilityr.gnn.tv/headlines/9581/Congress_kills_minimum_wage_raise_gives_itself_a_raise Even Lou Dobbs doesn’t like it.

It really leaves me speechless. I have nothing more to add.

Environment and energy

Bush and his boot lickers say he has a plan. He is pushing for more nuclear energy because it is safer now. From what I have read in the Environment/Energy group this might be true but I have not seen him really promote it and it certainly has not translated in lower costs for me. In fact, in Texas, the only thing I have heard about is all the new coal plants that TXU plans on building. Coal? Yes coal, but apparently now it is clean. Ugh! Seriously. And there is a nuclear plant about two hours from me in Comanche, Texas. In fact, it is called Comanche Peak, but I hear nothing special coming from there. I only hear about coal.

http://texas.sierraclub.org/press/newsreleases/20060421.asp

Texas was just identified as the place in the US that is producing the most wind energy. Why can’t the pretzelnut put more money in this? It would lessen our dependence on at least one fossil burning fuel.

Harness the wind in Texas President Morans.

The article at the end states that in order for wind energy to become a conventional source of energy it will need federal help. That is not happening right now because the government is too busy subsidizing oil even though it is pulling down record profits. We are dooming ourselves.

Big Oil and Texas and preznit cowboy have a long history together. For that matter so does preznit cowboy and the energy industry. One of his good buds helped gouge customers in California and then promote deregulation here in Texas. Y’know who? You guessed it. Enron and Ken Lay. But they were just acquaintances, riiiiiiggggghhhhtttt. :eyes:
Connections

All I know is, we have to do something to stop the wild speculating on oil and we have to disassociate ourselves from Big Oil because fuel prices are outrageous. Furthermore, car companies executives are not really helping things as they continue to churn out things like the Hummer. Of course the H3s have replaced the H2s but that doesn't matter. H2 and H3 still get the finger.

While I am not particularly a fan of Thomas Friedman especially with his stance on the war in Iraq he did put together a good documentary on how Big Oil has got the US by the cojones and the repukes aren’t doing a thing about it. Basically, the technologies exist to wean ourselves from oil or at the very least use less of it, but the government will not subsidize alternative energy sources in a substantial way as I alluded to above.

http://times.discovery.com/convergence/friedman/addictedtooil/addictedtooil.html

I'm tired for tonight. I hope all the links work. I will post the other parts at another time. Thanks for reading. I apologize in advance for murdering any part of the language with my writing or grammar but it can't be as bad as * ruins English.