The Bush legacy
This is a response to “Stirring the pot,” Pacific Northwest magazine, May 16.
Viewing some of the signs shown: What freedoms have been taken away? What are the new taxes that have taken effect? What about the deficit that George W. Bush left?
Bush gave the rich nearly $10 billion in tax cuts and started two wars. The war in Afghanistan cost $70 billion — and we left it to start a war in Iraq, which caused more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.
Where were the demonstrations about the mess the Bush administration left behind?
— Anne & Bill Dillon, Kent
Carender late to the game
Where was Keli Carender when the Bush administration started a horrendous pre-emptive war without paying for it?
Where was her outrage when it was spending $1 billion a month for the occupation of Iraq —much of it in bundles of cash — to out-of-control “defense” contractors?
In my book, war profiteering is treasonous. I wonder what Carender thinks about the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, also courtesy of the Bush administration, which is larger than Vatican City and built at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.
Of course, all of this happened in conjunction with tax cuts and deregulation. Populism could be a wonderful thing, but when it is based on ignorance or willful disregard for the facts, it is frightening.
— Nancy Anderson, Seattle
Do your homework
The tea-party movement exemplifies the United States —land of the free, home of the protester. But if you are going to protest, at least do your homework.
The hyperbole from this group makes for good sound bites, but much of its logic baffles the mind. Taking statements of national tea-party movement leaders and using them as facts to form your own opinion would likely come back to haunt you. While the movement claims to have no organized leadership there are, in fact, a few high-profile figures who are using this movement to further their own political agenda and careers.
We are in our current financial mess not because of high taxes, but because of poor decisions made by previous administrations. The first, allowing deregulated mega-financial institutions to gamble, practically risk-free, with our money. The second, maneuvering us into two extremely expensive wars.
Changing our elected leaders, the supposed purpose of the tea-party movement, would change nothing. Our system is corrupt. Until we devise a system that does not rely on contributions —in most cases, legal bribes —to fund elections, we will get what Will Rogers called “the best government money can buy.”
If you do a little more homework, you would find that a U.S. Senate race, for example, costs $12 million on average. Divide that by the number of days in a Senate term, 2,190, and you would find that a U.S. senator must raise more than $6,000 every day he or she is in office in order to run for re-election.
This is accomplished with the help of a friendly lobbyist. Washington, D.C., has more than 17,000 of them. I know — I’m a retired lobbyist.
— John Creed, Seattle