Let's tell secrets
Here's some food for thought you won't hear amid the rhetoric at the Republican National Convention this week:
Since President Bush took office in January 2001, America has lost 1.1 million jobs. To look at it another way, if you're looking for a job today, you have 1.1 million fewer chances of landing one than you did four years ago. No Presidential administration since the Depression, Republican or Democratic, has overseen a net loss of jobs. Unless corporate America suddenly decides to hire an extra 1.1 million people for whom they're not currently hunting, Bush 43 will be the first.
Per the newly released Census figures, 1.3 million more Americans are living below the poverty line today than were at this time last year. That includes nearly 25 percent of African Americans (not that the President bothered to accept that invitation to the NAACP convention to discuss it, mind you), and 17.6 of America's children of all shades. These are the people to whom those massive tax cuts for the wealthy are supposed to be trickling down. Looks like someone put a tight new washer in that faucet where the trickle used to be.
Overall, the median household income has plummeted 3.4 percent in the past three years. That means the average American household is trying to skate by on $1,500 less per year. How much are you enjoying that challenge? No wonder consumer debt has pushed past the $2 trillion mark — people are mortgaging their futures to pay bills in the present.
When President Bush assumed the White House, the Federal budget was running a record surplus of $236 billion, and had been balanced for three consecutive years. Today, the budget sits at a record $445 billion deficit. I've done the math for you — that's a negative turnaround of $681 billion. I don't know about you, but that money didn't fall into my bank account. Where'd all those simoleons go? Start with the farm subsidy bill the President signed two years ago, even though it was a prime example of the kind of big-government boondoggle Republicans are supposed to despise. Oh, yeah, and you might have heard some scuttlebutt about this Iraq thing. If the Governator wants to find some "economic girlie-men," he might think about looking up in the Presidential box.
As I said, you won't hear any of the above at the GOP Convention. But you should.
Since President Bush took office in January 2001, America has lost 1.1 million jobs. To look at it another way, if you're looking for a job today, you have 1.1 million fewer chances of landing one than you did four years ago. No Presidential administration since the Depression, Republican or Democratic, has overseen a net loss of jobs. Unless corporate America suddenly decides to hire an extra 1.1 million people for whom they're not currently hunting, Bush 43 will be the first.
Per the newly released Census figures, 1.3 million more Americans are living below the poverty line today than were at this time last year. That includes nearly 25 percent of African Americans (not that the President bothered to accept that invitation to the NAACP convention to discuss it, mind you), and 17.6 of America's children of all shades. These are the people to whom those massive tax cuts for the wealthy are supposed to be trickling down. Looks like someone put a tight new washer in that faucet where the trickle used to be.
Overall, the median household income has plummeted 3.4 percent in the past three years. That means the average American household is trying to skate by on $1,500 less per year. How much are you enjoying that challenge? No wonder consumer debt has pushed past the $2 trillion mark — people are mortgaging their futures to pay bills in the present.
When President Bush assumed the White House, the Federal budget was running a record surplus of $236 billion, and had been balanced for three consecutive years. Today, the budget sits at a record $445 billion deficit. I've done the math for you — that's a negative turnaround of $681 billion. I don't know about you, but that money didn't fall into my bank account. Where'd all those simoleons go? Start with the farm subsidy bill the President signed two years ago, even though it was a prime example of the kind of big-government boondoggle Republicans are supposed to despise. Oh, yeah, and you might have heard some scuttlebutt about this Iraq thing. If the Governator wants to find some "economic girlie-men," he might think about looking up in the Presidential box.
As I said, you won't hear any of the above at the GOP Convention. But you should.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 11:15 AM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
But we're aware. Now we're in a struggle to notify the rest of Americans who seem to be blinding themselves with Mr. Bush's so-called "charm".
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