|
Source: http://www.thinkprogress.org/Stop Invoking Roosevelt President Bush said: “We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy - and chief among them is freedom from fear. … As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, ‘each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth.’” FACT: FDR’s grandson James Roosevelt Jr.: “This summer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s name and legacy were invoked by almost a dozen speakers at the Republican National Convention. But George W. Bush is not, and never will be, a president like FDR.” FACT: “The implication that FDR would support privatization of America’s greatest national program is an attempt to deceive the American people and an outrage.” Fighting Terrorists in Iraq President Bush said: “Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home.” FACT: According to the Washington Post on January 13, “Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank. Iraq provides terrorists with ‘a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills,’ said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. ‘There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries.’” Iran President Bush said: “We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium re-processing, and end its support for terror. “ FACT: Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, “on Friday urged the United States to join forces with the EU to persuade Iran to give up atomic processes that could be used to make weapons.” FACT: Just three months ago, Undersecretary of State John Bolton mocked the very notion of diplomacy with Iran. At a conference in London, Bolton “responded to a question about whether he would support Europe’s attempt to offer Iran incentives with the terse one-liner: ‘I don’t do carrots.‘” The Coalition President Bush said, “Other nations around the globe have stood with us….In the next for years, my Administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.” There goes that talk about coalitions again. Does anyone else remember the 2003 State of the Union address? President Bush announced, “If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.” Two years ago, we were set to lead a coalition into Iraq; our allies on the “coalition of the willing” list were much publicized even though “only a few” of the countries in the coalition were “providing any major military presence in the Gulf.” The reason why we are back to building coalitions is that: FACT: The once heavily touted 45-member “coalition of the willing” list has been scrapped and replaced “with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government.” FACT: Spain has withdrawn its troops in Iraq. FACT: The Netherlands has withdrawn its troops in Iraq. FACT: Hungary has withdrawn its troops in Iraq. FACT: Ukraine is expected to withdraw its troops in Iraq soon. FACT: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Philippines, Thailand, and New Zealand are some more countries “which had troops in or supported operations in Iraq at one point but have pulled out since.” And of the remaining countries: FACT: “Polish military officers, who command the multinational division in south-central Iraq, have said their reduced numbers…could force them to cut the number of provinces they patrol - a decision that may force the US to fill the gaps.” FACT: “Several allied countries, many of them eastern European, that were part of the original ‘New Europe’ group backing the Iraqi war have said they will either completely withdraw or substantially reduce their forces in Iraq after the January 30 elections.” FACT: “Several western European NATO members - including France, Germany, Belgium, and Spain - to participate in the alliance’s new training mission in Baghdad.”
Gangs
President Bush said: “Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs.”
FACT: President Bush has proposed a 40 percent cut in federal juvenile crime prevention funds, which would effectively “pull the plug” on good local programs that reduce gang and youth violence.
FACT: President Bush has sponsored a 44 percent overall reduction in delinquency-fighting and anti-gang funds since 2002.
Proliferation Security
President Bush said, “We are cooperating with 60 governments in the Proliferation Security Initiative, to detect and stop the transit of dangerous materials.”
FACT: The administration has undermined the legitimacy of the Proliferation Security Initiative by refusing to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This treaty has been ratified by 145 nations, including the other members of the Proliferation Security Initiative (who insist that it provides the only legitimate international framework for the initiative). Even Republican Senator Richard Lugar – chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a Bush supporter – has repeatedly criticized the administration for failing to ratify the treaty.
Support Our Troops
QUOTE: “During this time of war, we must continue to support our military and give them the tools for victory.”
FACT: In December, a soldier serving in Iraq asked why he had to “dig through local land fills” to find scrap metal to properly arm his military combat vehicle. Rumsfeld’s response? “You have to go to war with the Army you have.”
FACT: Soldiers in Iraq have been forced to buy their own body armor and armor their own vehicles. Many guardsman claim they were not adequately trained.
Attention to WMD
President Bush said: “There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction - but no longer without attention and without consequence.”
FACT: “Questions of how to deal with North Korea…have divided the Bush administration since its first days.” Under Bush’s watch, North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is thought to have quadrupled. Charles Pritchard, formerly Colin Powell’s top official dealing with North Korea, has warned for months that “the White House lacks an effective strategy to dissuade North Korea from building up its nuclear arms.” And while the U.S. sat passively on the sidelines, North Korea may have sold nuclear material to Libya. In fact, instead of stepping up efforts to secure nuclear materials, a recent Harvard University report titled “Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action,” finds “less fissile materials were secured in the two years after Sept. 11 than in the two years before.”
Homeland Insecurity
President Bush said, “We have created a new department of government to defend our homeland, focused the FBI on preventing terrorism,…improved border security, and trained more than a half million first responders.”
FACT: “As its leadership changes for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security remains hampered by personality conflicts, bureaucratic bottlenecks and an atmosphere of demoralization, undermining its ability to protect the nation against terrorist attack, according to current and former administration officials and independent experts.”
FACT: “DHS is still a compilation of 22 agencies that aren’t integrated into a cohesive whole,” said its recently departed inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, who released many critical reports and was not reappointed after a falling-out with Ridge. Asked for examples of ineffectiveness, he replied: “I don’t know where to start. . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”
FACT: When asked about the administration’s effort “to secure chemical plants and trains carrying chemicals,” President Bush’s former Deputy Homeland Security Adviser Richard Falkenrath replied, “I’m sorry to say, since 9/11 we have essentially done nothing.“
FACT: Virtual Case File, the software overhaul intended to aid in coordinating the FBI’s antiterrorism measures, “has been a train wreck in slow motion.”
FACT: The White House has consistently underfunded top security priorities like firefighter and police departments…
FACT: …as well as ports…
FACT: …and trains.
FACT: “The Bush administration has failed to create a unified U.S. fingerprint database because of agency infighting,” though this project was one of the top priorities of the Department of Homeland Security.
Homeland Insecurity
President Bush said: “In the three and a half years since September 11th, 2001, we have taken unprecedented actions to protect Americans. We have created a new department of government to defend our homeland.”
FACT: “The Department of Homeland Security remains hampered by personality conflicts, bureaucratic bottlenecks and an atmosphere of demoralization, undermining its ability to protect the nation against terrorist attack, according to current and former administration officials and independent experts…it remains a second-tier agency in the clout it commands within President Bush’s Cabinet, the officials said. ”
AIDS
President Bush said: “Because HIV/AIDS brings suffering and fear into so many lives, I ask you to reauthorize the Ryan White Act to encourage prevention, and provide care and treatment to the victims of that disease.”
FACT: Two years ago, President Bush promised to spend $3 billion per year to “turn the tide against AIDS” abroad. Congress approved $2.9 billion to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases in 2005, but it cut the U.S. pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to $350 million - almost $200 million less than last year’s donation. “The administration is also blocking the Fund from receiving $88 million that Congress appropriated in the 2004 fiscal year.”
FACT: “Although Bush quoted prices for generic versions of AIDS drugs in his announcement, in fact the first round of US grants under its PEPFAR program does not authorize the use of generics, instead favoring drugs from Western pharmaceutical companies at prices at least four times higher than the lowest-cost generics.”
FACT: The U.S. government completely ignored or hid research warnings that showed severe flaws in a study of the use of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine. President Bush then devoted $500 million to send the drug to Africa, authorizing its administration to thousands of African mothers and babies.
Capital Defense
President Bush said: “Soon I will send to Congress a proposal to fund special training for defense counsel in capital cases, because people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side.”
FACT: Bush held up the Innocence Protection Act, which provided funding for higher-quality defense counsel, even after it passed the House with overwhelming support. His administration wrote a 22-page letter saying the bill was the end of the world. He eventually signed it after it was badly diluted.
FACT: As chief legal counsel for then Gov. Bush in Texas, attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales was responsible for writing a memo on the facts of each death penalty case - Bush decided whether a defendant should live or die based on the memos. An analysis of these memos by the Atlantic Monthly concluded that “Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise the governor of crucial issues in the cases at hand: ineffective counsel, conflict of interest, mitigating evidence, even actual evidence of innocence.” In the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded 33-year-old, Gonzales’s memo “failed to mention that Washington’s mental limitations, and the fact that he and his ten siblings were regularly beaten with whips, water hoses, extension cords, wire hangers, and fan belts, were never made known to the jury.”
The Real Clinton Record on Social Security
The President’s staff has tried to invoke President Clinton’s record on Social Security to sell President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.
I was there in the Clinton White House. Let me tell you what actually happened. President Clinton enacted fiscally responsible policies that strengthened Social Security and kept it solvent for more years than anyone thought possible. He made it very clear to the Congress and conservatives there who wanted to send surpluses on tax cuts that we had a moral obligation to “save Social Security first.” That’s what we did.
President Bush has pursued the opposite policy: raid Social Security first. In the first term, he squandered two trillion dollars of the surplus on tax cuts for the wealthy. Now he wants to take us two trillion more dollars into debt to pay for the dismantling of Social Security.
As President Clinton himself was fond of saying - “Mr. President, that dog won’t hunt.”
Focus on Young People
President Bush said: “Now we need to focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail.”
FACT: In the 2004 budget he presented in 2003, President Bush proposed eliminating all funding for Youth Opportunity Grants, a program that gives job training to young people. In 2002 that program was funded at $225 million, in 2003 he proposed funding only $45 million ($43.5 million was actually funded) and in the 2004 budget, he proposed its elimination. Congress accepted his recommendation and funding has been eliminated.
FACT: Two federal banking agencies headed by Bush appointees are trying to change laws that would cripple the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a civil rights law prohibiting discrimination by banks against low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
Radical Judicial Nominees
President Bush said: “As President, I have a constitutional responsibility to nominate men and women who understand the role of courts in our democracy, and are well qualified to serve on the bench - and I have done so.”
FACT: President Bush has nominated Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes IV for a second time. Haynes led the group of attorneys responsible for the memos contending “the president wasn’t bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department.”
FACT: Bush is determined to install California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rodgers Brown to the federal courts. The New York Times described her record as a “war on mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear.”
FACT: Bush also renominated Alabama Attorney General William Pryor. His confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench would be a huge blow for women’s rights. Pryor considers Roe v. Wade to be “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our nation’s history.”
Private Accounts Fall Short
President Bush said: “Here is why personal accounts are a better deal. Your money will grow, over time, at a greater rate than anything the current system can deliver…”
FACT: Under the president’s plan, personal savings accounts would be adopted in tandem with a new price indexing formula, which would cost a 20-year-old just entering the labor force 34 percent of his or her expected benefits. This would amount to almost $134,000 over a lifetime of work. The private accounts proposed by Bush would give that 20-year-old “a chance to gain back, on average, about $47,000,” still $87,000 short of what he or she would get under the current system.
Real Tax Reform
The President promised a tax code that is “pro-growth, easy to understand and fair to all.”
Since 2001, President Bush added 10,000 pages to the code and other tax regulations, shifted the burden to the middle class and created new corporate tax loopholes.
So when the President promises “tax reform” hold on to your hat.
For tax system that’s fair, that’s simple, that shrinks the deficit and will be a job creator not a job killer see the American Progress Plan.
Energy Policy
President Bush said: “To keep our economy growing, we also need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy. Nearly four years ago, I submitted a comprehensive energy strategy that encourages conservation, alternative sources, a modernized electricity grid, and more production here at home, including safe, clean nuclear energy. “
FACT: In his first presidential budget, Bush proposed cutting $277 million out of renewable energy research, while spending an additional $2 billion on coal-related programs. His FY2004 budget tried to “slash funding for numerous clean energy and energy efficiency programs, including funding for bioenergy, wind and geothermal electricity sources.” Those cuts “were announced less than a week after the president announced his goal of energy independence in the State of the Union address.”
FACT: While the president has announced efforts to fund a hydrogen car, he took the money to pay for the program out of efforts to develop more fuel efficient vehicles in the short-term. Even the Bush tax cuts included provisions that make the energy situation worse. His latest tax bill included a provision creating a $100,000 tax writeoff for large SUVs like the Hummer (which gets just 10 miles to the gallon).
FACT: FACT: Vice President Dick Cheney had secret, back-room meetings with top energy executives to construct the administration’s industry-friendly energy policy. Instead of coming up with an effective energy policy, his plan provided millions in energy industry tax breaks worth over $20 billion.
Patients’ Rights
President Bush said: “To make our economy stronger and more productive, we must make health care more affordable. <…> Medical liability reform…will reduce health care costs, and make sure patients have the doctors and care they need.”
FACT: Malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of healthcare spending.
FACT: The GAO found that many reported reductions in supply by health care providers due to lawsuits could not be substantiated or “did not widely affect access to health care.”
Pitiful Pell Grants
President Bush said: “And we will make it easier for Americans to afford a college education, by increasing the size of Pell Grants.”
FACT: “But in the 2004-05 school year, about half of the current Pell recipients will get smaller grants or no grant at all.”
FACT: “Federal education officials recently amended how they calculate families’ eligibility for Pell grants, the backbone of federal financial aid to needy college students…That revision will bump up the share families are expected to pay, according to the American Council on Education, which represents about half the nation’s colleges and universities.”
FACT: “The change… will eliminate almost 90,000 students from the Pell program - and will reduce Pell awards to another 1.3 million students, the council says.”
FACT: “Despite soaring college costs, been stuck at $4,050 for three years. The American Association of Community Colleges characterizes the Pell grant freeze as ‘a severe blow’ to students from low-income families at a time of declining state and local support for public higher education.”
FACT: Though President Bush recently called for raising the Pell Grant by $100 in each of the next five years, the announcement is still “shy of his pledge during the 2000 presidential campaign to raise the maximum award to $5,100.”
Job Training, Community Colleges
President Bush said: “We will help an additional 200,000 workers to get training for a better career, by reforming our job training system and strengthening America’s community colleges.”
FACT: Last year, the Bush administration proposed cutting the largest direct aid initiative to community colleges, the Perkins program for technical and vocational training, from $1.3 billion to about $1 billion. Congress had to step in to save the funding.
FACT: Bush’s 2005 budget proposed cutting job training and vocational education by 10 percent - that’s $656 million - from what Congress pledged to those programs in 2002.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
