PROSPERITY:
Economic Policy | September 20, 2005
THE
GOP DROWNING
IN
THEIR
OWN
HYPOCRISY
By
Douglas Drenkow, "Progressive
Thinking" As
Posted in "GordonTalk", "Comments
From Left Field", & "OpEdNews"
The
problem with hypocrisy, other than those bothersome niceties of
honesty and integrity, is that your words are betrayed by your
actions.
Case
in point: Last week, at long last, President Bush won some
praise in many quarters, French and otherwise, for his having
explicitly raised the problem of poverty, often race-based, as a big contributor to
the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans before, during, and
after Hurricane Katrina.
Bush
told us in his prime-time audience: "We
have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."
"Finally!"
we bleeding-heart types rejoiced, "The Right has gotten the
message that we on the Left have been preaching -- from street
corners and weblogs to TV and DC, for as long as anyone alive
can remember -- that we're all in the same boat together,
whether on the swamp that had once been and would one day again
be the Big Easy or aboard the ship of state sailing upon the
currents of history. People helping people -- Americans helping
Americans -- is what made this country great and would re-build
the Gulf Coast to its former greatness. Government can be part
of the solution, more than the problem, in rebuilding the zone
of national disaster and in confronting the national disgrace of
poverty."
The
Reagan Revolution, which had vexed us on the Left for the past
quarter century, was making its final curtain call; a new New
Deal would now be dealt.
But
not so fast. It's one thing to talk about working to end chronic
poverty; it's another thing entirely to pay for it...and the
hundreds of billions of federal dollars that will be required so
that the South, the deep South, will rise again.
Enough
to make a grown fiscal conservative cry.
But
tears or no, the bills will have to be paid: The Port and its
City of New Orleans are the gateway to the agricultural and
industrial heartland of our great nation.
As
Bush himself said, "there is no way to imagine America
without New Orleans..."
So
where then will come the hundreds of billions of dollars
required to rebuild?
The
very next day, Bush offered his solution to this most daunting
of problems: "It's going to cost whatever it costs...But
I'm confident we can handle it, and I'm confident we can handle
our other priorities. It's going to mean that we're
going to have to cut unnecessary spending."
Putting
aside for the moment that that wouldn't even come close to
freeing enough revenue to rebuild the Gulf Coast, we have to
ask, wouldn't these cuts fall hardest upon the very poorest, the
very ones our Great Leader professed to the nation he would do
everything to help (while protecting the tax cuts benefiting the
richest, who would be most able to help)?
Hypocrisy,
thy name is Bush.
And
this call of the Lame Duck, echoed throughout the halls of the
Capitol by the truest of Right Wing believers, is already a dead
duck, shot down by the masses who've watched the horrors for our
people here at home as intently as they've watched the horrors
for our people overseas.
According
to the latest Gallup poll, 54% of Americans believe we should cut
our spending on Iraq to pay for our spending on the Gulf Coast;
only 6% of Americans believe we should pay for the
reconstruction by cutting domestic spending (Almost equal
numbers, about 15 or 17%, believe we should pay for the
rebuilding by deficit-spending or tax increases).
In
effect, most Americans are following the lead of the Cindy
Sheehans of this world; only a handful, the leadership of the
President and his Grand Old Party.
And
all the King's horses, and all the King's men (including
overseer of reconstruction, none other than Karl Rove), couldn't
put the King's reputation together again.
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