I heard it again on the Sunday TV news shows today. After some discussion of the complete failure of the federal government to even marginally deal with the disaster of Katrina, someone made the statement “But if critics start bringing in all their hobby horses like Global Warming and attack the administration the public will simply decide that this is just politics as usual and turn off.”
Bush did not promise much when he was first made President, and he has delivered a lot less to most of us who aren’t wealthy enough to collect his tax cuts and who are not connected enough to collect graft from politicians feeding the lobbyists in Tom DeLay’s K-Street Project. Bush brought in the philosophy of extremely limited government, and as we can see now, has not provided even that.
Katrina is simply the latest of a long line of massive government failures which began with the deficits created by the inappropriate tax cuts. The Bush supporters claim that the problem was the recession and the anti-terrorist actions required by 9/11, but good government is at least partially prepared for surprises. Bush has offered us a government in which he eliminates all preparations for surprise, then claims that he can’t be blamed for the nasty results of the surprises. Then instead of responsibly planning for the financing of what government he runs, he refuses to try to balance the budget and instead builds the deficit to unprecedented levels.
True, Bush is not responsible for the recession, 9/11, or Katrina. What he is responsible for is dismantling a government that should have been able to adequately capable of dealing with those surprises.
Bush promised us limited government, probably because not attempting to deal with the larger social problems and unexpected risks matches his personal laziness and lack of desire to apply his energies to any job at all. Instead of limited government he has brought us incompetent government which cannot meet the needs of America in the modern world.
It is not “Playing Politics” to list the long litany of failures committed by this totally Republican-dominated federal government and demand that Bush and the Congress be held accountable for their corruption and failures.
I am demanding competent government. That’s what I’m paying for, not so Bush’s incompetent friends can find employment in patronage jobs in which they fight to see who can do less of the job then Bush does. I want Bush and the Republicans held responsible for their incompetence, graft and failed philosophy of “limited government” which is little more than their whine that things are too complicated for them to understand in today’s modern society.
They need to get out and leave government to the competent grown-ups.
