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Standing Together
"It is the responsibility of the
patriot to protect his country from its government."
~~ Thomas Paine
by Bridget Gibson
09/16/03: Our country has a long road to walk. We are facing years in
the rebuilding of a nation 6000 miles from our shores. The current
estimated price for this endeavor alone is in excess of $216 Billion.
Our current account deficit, without the cost of rebuilding Iraq, is
more than $500 Billion for 2003.
The infrastructure within the United States is in decline. More than 29%
of our bridges have been rated “functionally obsolete,” 75% of our
schools are substandard, twenty-one hundred dams have structural flaws;
water mains, power grids and roads are either declining or unable to
keep up with current and future demands.
Corporations are not using the available lower interest rates to start
investments in a future manufacturing infrastructure or to hire any of
the nearly three million recently unemployed.
How will we, as a nation, determine who will shoulder the cost, in lives
and treasure, to pay for these things?
Our current administration believes that those debts – and the cost
for operating our government for 2003 through 2010 will all be
“borrowed” – be paid by future generations. Deficit spending is
robbing our children and our grandchildren.
There is no money to pay for the costs that this administration has
incurred by instituting a war in Iraq. This war has been proven to have
been based on lies and unfounded inferences of ties to al Qaeda.
From the “conservatives,“ we have been given an extravagant and
expensive “party.” During the 2000 campaign, Bush talked about how
it was the “taxpayers’ money” that the government was spending.
Yes, it was and is the taxpayers’ money. He seems to have forgotten
that and has given himself and his wealthy cronies deep discounts on the
share that they pay to bankroll his radical wishlist of endless war.
Halliburton’s no-bid contracts are in the billions and Dick Cheney
continues to receive his million dollars in retirement each year. The
Carlyle Group continues to benefit as a military supplier and George
Herbert Walker Bush continues his position with them. When the two
highest offices in the country are held by men that personally benefit
from their political connection, there is an unmistakable conflict of
interest.
Paying down the debt and securing our financial future was abandoned
when George hit the “trifecta”; i.e., recession, war and national
emergency.
What has become increasing apparent to me is that with the Republicans
in control of the Senate, the Congress and the Whitehouse, there is no
fiscal responsibility, there are no checks and balances and there will
be no brakes on this madly speeding trainwreck.
We may have the opportunity in November of 2004 to change the leadership
in all houses in Washington, D.C. I believe we need to closely examine
the alternatives to this profligate team of spenders and revoke the
credit cards that we, as citizens, secure with our labors.
We should not be supplying these addicted spenders with our sons and
daughters lives and fortunes.
Use your voices at the polls and let us stand together to tell them.
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