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May 13, 2002 (political sanity) -- We face huge deficits we and our children must repay, and suffer severe cuts in needed programs. But George W. Bush is handing out OUR money to HIS friends, and doing special favors for special interests.
And now we learn that top Republican lawmakers don't know about Bush's sneaky favors.
As Alexander Bolton reports in The Hill, "In a series of little-noticed executive orders," Bush is gifting "corporations with billions of dollars" -- and not bothering with the constitutionally required advice and "consent of Congress."
Bush swore to uphold and defend the Constitution -- widely considered the Law of the Land.
This just goes to show that Bush considers the Law of the Land just a bunch of optional guidelines.
Bolton reports that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) said he was "not familiar with" Bush's new tax giveaways for his special friends.
This is odd -- considering Thomas is the ardent tax slasher and corporate crusader who insisted on giving Enron millions of dollars in "tax rebates" Enron never even paid. Also, Thomas' committee is charged with writing tax policies.
Another corporate friend, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), never heard of Bush's big bonanzas for business either.
Again, that's strange -- because that committee holds jurisdiction over these policies.
Bolton quotes a bewildered Grassley: "INDOPCO, [intangible costs] that is going to have to be subject to legislation. I don't think [the administration] can do much -- maybe they can do something in that area but we've got to legislate, too."
This is as much news to the Bush corporate Kris Kringles as these sneaky policies are to Congress.
For Bush, it's not just that money talks. Money paid to him by his friends is like a lottery ticket that always wins. Prior administrations held the business of America is business. This administration stands for the proposition that business is the only thing that matters in America.
Forty years ago, John F. Kennedy offered this vision of America:
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
The Bush cadre perverted Kennedy's vision of America into a nation which will give any gift, shift any burden, create any hardship, support any special interest, oppose any reform, in order to assure the survival and the success of itself and its friends.
Thanks to Bush, GOP means Greed On Parade.
See: Treasury Circumventing Hill on Tax Breaks
By Alexander Bolton, The Hill: May 8, 2002
http://www.thehill.com/050802/treasury.shtm
Copyright © 2002, Mike Hersh/Political Sanity.