Bush's 2007 Budget

A few days ago, President Bush submitted his proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, 2007. There is no pretense in this budget, it clearly reflects a self-perception of "Wartime President." The budget contains an increase of discretionary dollars for the military and homeland denfense. Add another $70 billion requested outside the budget for conducting the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and our expenditures for continuing our aggressive policies will total somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion. That is a big chunk out of a budget that totals $2.77 trillion. Pushing the concepts of democracy, freedom and peace at the point of a gun is not cheap. And, as history has taught us, most often just does not work. To pay for his adventures, Mr Bush cuts or eliminates some 140 programs that impact America's needy, medical research, infrastructure maintenance, the environment, and workplace safety. He sells government lands to special interests here in the US and permits the oil and gas industries to extract valuable resources from other government lands without paying royalties. We taxpayers will wind up footing the bill for Mr Bush's largesse. The president also proposes to sell control of six of America's major ports to a company in the United Arab Emirates. Four of those ports are in our back yard; New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Mr Bush likes to count it as a success when a Middle Eastern country has an election but, even with elections, Afghanistan has become the world's largest poppy producer, Iraqi resistance to our occupation becomes fiercer and more deadly every day and, worst of all, the Palestinians elect a party into power that vows to continue killing Americans and to eradicate Israel from the face of the earth. It is difficult to believe that we or anyone who sympathizes with us is safer in the world created by this administration's policies. Therefore, it is time that we citizens ask our representatives in Congress to convince Mr Bush that our very presence in the holy lands of Islam is offensive and trying to gain control of their oil assets is greatly resented. A long term occupation to control a finite resouce is not as good for us in the long term as investing that money into renewable sources of energy. So if our representatives want to continue supporting Mr Bush, we have a duty to hire somebody else this November who will better represent our interests.

NICK REINA

Milmay