Bush's Three Part Agenda
March 24, 2001
By Lane Blake

Every President has an agenda to execute. Under normal circumstances that agenda has been endorsed by the majority of the American people, by virtue of a fair and honest election. However that is not the case with George W. Bush.

The first part of the Bush/Harris plan was to eliminate 64,000 voters on the pretext of being convicted felons. There's nothing wrong with that, provided of course that they are convicted felons, but they weren't. In fact less than half of the names removed were accurate. Thousands of the would-be felons were able to vote after signing an affidavit to the effect that they were not felons.

Thousands more however simply left the polling places in disgust. The poll workers in many precincts did not inform them that there was a process by which they could still cast their ballot. The only crime committed by many of the pseudo-felons was that they were black and/or registered Democrats. While these conditions are frowned upon in the South, as of now they are not illegal. That may well change over the next four years, which brings us to the Bush agenda.

First repay the church bosses by eliminating funds to organizations that provide education on birth control and STD's in developing nations. These organizations helped people with birth control - they have never provided abortions. But Republicans never like to let facts get in the way of rhetoric. Appointing John "the South will rise again" Ashcroft was another homage to the church bosses. Mr. Ashcroft not only suffers from the most severe case of Christian psychosis since Torquemada, but in his spare time likes to defend the great and noble cause of the Confederacy. Maybe I'm being narrow minded, but I just can't find any virtue in treason or slavery, which basically describes the cause of the Confederacy.

Then there's the "faith based initiatives." This would pour millions of dollars in to the coffers of charlatans such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and of course the right Reverend Moon. Perhaps with the extra money Mr. Falwell can combat the ever increasing threat of homosexual puppets who have infiltrated children's programing on PBS television.

Once big religion has been placated it's time to help out an even smaller segment of the population - the one percenters. These are the people who for generations have been overlooked by social programs and tax reformers alike. These wealthiest one percent of the population have been taxed to such an extent that many of them have been reduced to being extremely rich when in a just world they would have been super rich.

By taxing their estates, people who are accustomed to living a life of complete opulence devoid of any responsibility are suddenly forced to contribute something back to a society which they assumed existed solely for their benefit.

The Democrats offered a reform of the estate tax a few years ago that would have exempted family farms and small businesses up to eight million dollars - this would have protected 100% of family farms from being exposed to any estate tax. The Republicans, who never tire of fighting the good fight, said this wasn't enough because while it does protect 99.75 percent of all estates it does nothing for the much maligned .25% of Americans who are subjected to this cruel tax.

Why would they so adamantly defend this vulnerable minority? Clearly it's not a large number of voters, they are, however, very generous to the Republican National Committee.

The third part of the Bush agenda concerns organized labor. Two weeks ago he signed an executive order outlawing labor agreements on all projects that are even partially funded by the federal government. According to George Bush these agreements banned non-union contractors from bidding on federal projects.

This, of course, is a complete lie. And while I don't want to downplay just how inept and incompetent George Bush is, I do believe that he knows it. Non-union companies have never been banned from federal or state projects - they simply have to abide by some minimum safety and pay standards while on that particular project. They also have to show that the employees they have on that job are not illegal aliens. For non-union companies like Brown and Root (a Haliburton Inc. subsidiary) that illegal alien stipulation can be a pretty high hurdle.

This unprovoked attack on working Americans will not only be detrimental to unionized construction workers, but will also decrease the wage earning abillity of non-union workers. Non-union construction workers make about half as much as union workers exept when they're on a job with a project labor agreement or a prevailing wage job only on those jobs are they paid anything resembeling a living wage.

This is Bush's three part agenda, which he is currently attempting to execute. And as we all know by now, when it comes to execution the man has quite a record.

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