During Bush’s early clumsy fumbles after Katrina, some said “The Bush Era is over.” Just remember
the Republican Juggernaut is as relentless as a terminator — nothing will make them give up their mission to bankrupt the Federal
government and discredit all forms of government. So, once the new TV season is in full swing, expect them to resume as if nothing has
changed. Because nothing has, other than a few more people seeing Bush for what he is — and they hardly need him anymore. mjh
Bush Repackaged By Eleanor Clift, Newsweek
To hear Bush talk,
we’re about to witness a Republican utopia in the hurricane zone. Children will go to school with vouchers. Wages will
be lowered and regulations waived to accommodate the big contractors. The entire area will become a free-enterprise zone. And the GOP,
under the guise of economic revival, will impose one of its favorite ideas, the flat tax. It’s reminiscent of the Jim Carrey movie “The
Truman Show,” where Carrey lives in a picture-perfect town–except it turns out all the residents are actors. In Bush’s version,
everybody’s a Republican. …
Democrats are up against a coordinated, energetic effort on the right to implement policies
conservative theorists have been hoping to put into place for a long time. The rebuilding effort is ideologically motivated and
influenced by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that fueled the Reagan presidency. The proposals in a report titled
“Tragedy to Triumph” are premised on the belief that corporations freed from labor unions, environmental restrictions and onerous taxes
will reap huge profits and those profits will grow the pie for everybody–and at least create some crumbs for the masses.
This is a pivotal moment in politics with a president severely compromised and the country poised to embrace a
contrary view of government that rejects the Darwinian capitalism of the Reagan-Bush era. …
The White House, in order to repair
Bush’s image, is doing what Republicans used to accuse Democrats of doing–throwing money at the problem. … Majority leader Tom DeLay
had the gall to boast of an “ongoing victory” under 11 years of Republican control, but he may have to eat those words next November. The
’06 election will be a referendum on Republican governance, and in the wake of the Katrina debacle, the GOP has lost its aura of
competence. If they can’t get hurricane relief right, how can they keep us safe from terrorists? …
There is already a lot of
money flowing to the gulf region, and people with close ties to the White House could be among those who benefit. The gold rush is on.
Progressives better make a case for reinvigorating government before Bush and his pals dismantle what’s left of the New Deal.
vision for New Orleans: a profiteer’s paradise
Corporate profiteering from the disaster is only the tip of the
iceberg. Bush’s allies in the Republican-controlled Congress are urging that reconstruction be accompanied by measures limiting victims’
right to sue, establishing school vouchers, lifting restrictions on federal funds for religious groups, suspending environmental
regulations on new oil refineries, waiving the estate tax, and enacting a flat tax. “The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas
to the Gulf Coast is white hot,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana. …
This rejection of “big government”
applies, however, only to those federal functions left over from the past that have to do with protecting the physical and economic
security of working people. When it comes to maintaining law and order and protecting the property of the wealthy, however, Bush is
emphatically in favor of federal power and the use of military force. …
Bush concluded: “It is now clear that a challenge on
this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces—the institution of our government most capable of
massive logistical operations on a moment’s notice.”
Thus the failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the
Homeland Security Department in Hurricane Katrina is used as the justification for making the military takeover of New Orleans a
precedent for future and broader exercises in martial law. The posse comitatus law, Bush implied, which bars the military from domestic
policing, must be weakened or repealed outright.
Gulf Coast’s recovery :: The Daily Herald, Provo Utah
The president’s call for a “Gulf Opportunity Zone” is intriguing, but
he needs to make sure storm relief doesn’t become a Trojan horse for every conservative ideologue’s favorite pet project. Flat tax,
anyone?