Bush's Latest Strategy re: New Orleans

[donco6]

So, Shrubby is going to rebuild NO "higher" and better. Let's put aside the engineering feat that would be required to raise the level of the city (anyone got several cubic miles of fill dirt available?), and focus on his REAL agenda - destroying other social programs.

* has already said he won't raise taxes to rebuild NO. Even without considering the skyrocketing deficit and the cost of Iraq burying us ever deeper in debt, where will * get the money to rebuild NO without more taxes? Well, he'll propose cuts of course. And then the pressure will be put on the Dems in Congress. Do we vote FOR the cuts in Medicaid and Social Security and every other possible social program in order to save NO, or do we vote agains the cuts and stand accused by the Repugs of not wanting to help the hurricane victims?

In chess, this is called a fork, and it always results in the sacrifice of a piece.

[onenote]

1. in chess its a fork; to the poor, eldery,and infirm, its a fuck

[donco6]

2. Got that right.

And we can all see it coming.

[Richard Steele]

This is no fork, at least for Dems.

The only one who would suffer from such a move is B*SH.

His approval rating is in the toilet,
and any dissatisfaction over his so-called plans
is going to be targeted at HIM.

He is NOT popular enough to try such a power-play;
the only one losing pieces from here on out is him.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. All you need is Wally for your friend.

A stauncher pal you couldn't wish for.

[ticapnews]

12. Isn't that what we thought after 9/11?

Of course he will get blamed for the worst security and intelligence failure in American history. Any attempt by the president to capitalize on 3000 deaths will backfire. His approval ratings are already so low they can't possibly recover.

Sound familiar?

Bush has a 35-40% base that simply will not turn against him. He has support in Congress and he has successfully packed the federal bench. He has a media that has been tamed to either support what he says, or at worst, not speak out against him. 9/11. War. Treason. Lies upon lies upon lies. His base will not desert him and his spinners will be working overtime to get this done as well. Bush "hit the trifecta" on 9/11 and he plans on turning this tragedy into another windfall.

It would be folly to underestimate him. Those who do not learn from history...

[Veronicrat]

3. we say NO to capital gains tax cuts-

that isnt on the table

we refuse to one domestic program in the US

& bring our kids home from the war

we ask for afull accounting of firms who have made millions from the war
& see where
THE MILITARY can cut cost

& run Bunny Greenhouse for some public office

[donco6]

5. I'd make Bunnatine head of the GAO.

That should save several billion right there.

[melody]

4. We knew he wouldn't do the right thing, just the Right Wing Thing

It's yet another cynical strategy to punish more of the poor and helpless while they "assist" the suffering, pitting one group against the other.

[donco6]

6. Exactly.

If the poor end up pissed at each other, Bush walks away the winner.

[ultraist]

8. "His real agenda-destorying other social programs."

It will be the social programs and the lower and middle classes that inevitably pick up the bill, while no bid contractors rake in.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/16/143617.php

snip

Bush After Katrina: Where's Harry Hopkins?
by Jude Nagurney Camwell on September 16, 2005 02:36 PM

Where is President Bush's Harry Hopkins? We need him. Bush may speak pretty rhetoric, yet he is virtually silent about the social needs of New Orleans and of the worsening poverty across the United States. Waiving Davis-Bacon while silenty offering rebuilding contracts to profiteering political cronies is nothing but worrisome. Bush pushed his "ownership society" ideology during his speech, the Urban Homesteading Act for example, which is short-term Republican micromanagement of an insidious poverty that will still exist when the funds have run out. Does the President believe that he can accomplish a war on poverty without informing the American people that either their taxes will need to be raised or else they will suffer an ever-widening gap between rich and poor while government manipulates more tax breaks as a way to redistribute wealth to the richest? Somewhere along the way, we know that sacrifices must be made for what we've deliberately done in Iraq and for what nature did to us in New Orleans. The bill has been placed in front of us. Who's going to wind up paying the bill? If the richest are not called on by the Bush administration to pay their fair share, the middle class and the poor will be the ones who will suffer most, even though their taxes are not "raised". They will pay higher prices. Their schools will suffer. Their social programs will dissipate as spending becomes restricted to fighting in Iraq and rebuilding New Orleans. The gap between the "two Americas" will deepen.

The economic realities that Republican leadership have avoided, with an all-too-supportive FOX News giving cheerleader's megaphone, have hit us in the face. The Grover Norquist-"drown it in the bathtub" form of federal government was drowned by the floodwaters of August. This is a brand new day.

Where's Harry Hopkins?

[donco6]

10. You want the answer?

"Does the President believe that he can accomplish a war on poverty without informing the American people that either their taxes will need to be raised or else they will suffer an ever-widening gap between rich and poor while government manipulates more tax breaks as a way to redistribute wealth to the richest?"

I believe the President DOES believe he can accomplish this, as preposterous as it may be. The rich don't care if the gap increases; and the poor are unheard by he and his ilk.

[TomClash]

9. Why should the Dems bite?

Vote to bring the soldiers home. That should save enough money to rebuild New Orleans and Biloxi.

If he doesn't want to bring the soldiers home, then let's vote to cut all other defense programs and raise corporate taxes by 10% and individual taxes for those making above $250,000 per year by 20% and then let's completely repeal all capital gains tax cuts.

If they don't like that, then the hell with them. Let them live with the deficit.

One tiny moan: skip the chess analogy - it's wrong.

[donco6]

11. Who can introduce such a bill?

The Repugs still control Congress with a majority. None of those ideas would even be introduced, let alone passed.

And it's not them who will live with the deficit. It's those who benefit from social programs who will pay.

And the chess analogy isn't wrong.

[TomClash]

13. You propose amendments to the Katrina bill

and the repukes vote them down.

And then you vote for the Katrina bill.

There won't be a lot of spending cuts anyway. As we approach the 2006 elections who's going to cut a farm subsidy in Iowa to help Mississippi? No one from Iowa. And so it goes.

Result: the deficit is going up.

You can get out of a fork by checking the opponent's King with one piece and then moving the other. Or one forked piece can move to protect the other. Either way you don't necessarily lose a piece.