Bush Press Conference: It’s All Good
In response to criticism that I’m picking on President Bush, I’d like to praise him in providing these morsels from his pre-vacation news conference today:
* In a gesture of empathy to the residents of Minneapolis where a major interstate highway bridge collapsed last week, he dismissed dealing with the nation’s 70,000 structurally deficient bridges until Congress changes the way it spends highway money.
* In a gesture of empathy to middle-class homeowners hit with foreclosures in an historic housing market crack-up, he ruled out any direct federal assistance like the enormous tax breaks given the nation’s wealthiest homeowners since he took office.
* Said he is confident in the ability of Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Al Qaeda terrorists at the Afghan border even though the Pakistani strongman has shown no inclination to do so and has been more interested of late in flaming Barack Obama.
* Said the best way to honor former NFL player Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death while serving in Afghanistan “is to find the truth” while failing to note that as commander and chief he has been notably uncurious about the ongoing scandal, including not telling a congressional committee about when he first learned of the Army’s cover-up.
* Described Iran as “a destabilizing influence in the Middle East,” while failing to note the biggest destabilizing influence.
* Said that Guantánamo Bay, the flagship resort in the Rumsfeld Gulag, cannot be closed until other countries agree to take the more than 350 people still there.
* Bristling at a question over whether Attorney General Gonzalez should be held accountable, said “Why would I hold somebody accountable who’s done nothing wrong?”
* Ignoring repeated Republican efforts to block Democratic-sponsored legislation, said he hoped Congress would deliver more legislation “rather than being the investigative body.”
Hurry back to Washington, Mr. President, hurry back.
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30 Responses to “Bush Press Conference: It’s All Good”
Aww give the guy a break, he had the Lime’s Disease…
too much time foraging in the rough for his golf balls……
Recess is for grade school kids, and court rooms. Vacation is for the rest of us.
wish I could spend so much time “on a break”.
“It’s All Good”
Sweet!
Yup, it’s kind of magical how Bush manages to keep a share of about 25% still commited to his strategiez. However, I’m really not sure if the Bush presidency is a win/win deal for the US people. I suspect that very soon, he will have spend all his credit and his supporterz will vanish like snowflakes in the sun.
Instead I hope for new opportunities turning up in 2008. And that Bush will have to get a losser W-” job. Well, I guess I belong to the haterz.
Well, actually we have to get countries to not only agree to take them, but to also agree to enforce a gag order against them concerning their treatment at Club Fed.
So far only Australia has been willing.
Nice picture of that smirking jacka***.
His presidency has been nothing short of a disaster, and it looks like he is intent on “staying the course” to make sure it stays that way.
It’d be nice to think that he might actually bear some of the pain and suffering that he’s inflicted on others. Unfortunately, he will likely live out the remainder of his days in lavish comfort no matter what hell he may have unleashed.
I found it interesting that the President was unwilling to even consider increasing the gas tax five cents to fund infrastructure repairs. With so much attention being focused on the need for upgrades to the nation’s transportation infrastructure it seems to make a lot of sense to be considering how those upgrades could be carried out and how to pay for them, but the idea of increasing the gas tax was automatically shot down.
Taxes are generally not a great solution to a problem, but many, many fiscal conservatives have been looking for ways to tax those who use services for the services they are using, and this example seems an obvious way to get motorists to pay to repair aging infrastructure. The ideology may be to say “no” to any raise in taxes, but from a practical standpoint you need revenue to generate funds, and revenue currently available for transportation needs is insufficient to cover the work that is required.
I find it funny that he wants legeslation passed, but won’t meet the Democrats half way on anything.
Every year, Democrats and Republicans in congress pass increasingly expensive highway bills laden with unnecessary earmarks and pork.
What’s Bush supposed to do? Throw more federal taxpayer money at the problem?
I hope politicians won’t exploit the bridge tragedy in Minneapolis the way they did with Hurricane Katrina. Very few people were talking at great length about improving our bridges and highways before the bridge tragedy, so much of the post-tragedy grandstanding seems like political pandering to me.
Nick:
Point well taken on highway earmarks and pork. John Murtha be the champ there.
But the idea of a politician exploiting tragedy or personal or political gain is simply beyond the pale. Go wash your dirty mouth out!
I hope they exploit the heck out of the bridge collapse. It seems like the only way to get something meaningful done in DC these days is to have a tragedy of some sort act as the catalyst. If exploiting the I35-W bridge results in more members of Congress hopping on the infrastructure maintenance bandwagon, I’m all for it. Maintenance is a hell of a lot cheaper than reconstruction, which is a lesson we should have learned from Katrina.
One thing I would really love to see happen during the reconstruction of the bridge would be the addition of lightrail to link the city to the nearby university. College kids love lightrail – it’s cheap, convenient, and safer than driving home drunk after a night out. Plus, it could alleviate some of the congestion that may have contributed to the collapse.
Every effort should be made to create a system in which money is spent wisely, but it doesn’t make sense to let bridges and roads crumble because government is inefficient.
Pork is a problem, and it needs to be dealt with. Similarly, “government efficiency” is a term that makes people laugh, and for good reason. That said, even with a completely efficient system it would still be very expensive to build, maintain and upgrade infrastructure, and it’s undeniable that our current infrastructure is aging and needs attention. “Throwing” more money at the problem will begin to address the problem, and we should simultaneously demand that any money is used efficiently.
“What’s Bush supposed to do? Throw more federal taxpayer money at the problem?”
If that’s the only way to save lifes, YES.
8-|
Politics, Politicians and Corruption
(1) We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
(2) In politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you.
(3) Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable, the principles of it are troublesome.
(4) Justice without force is powerless, force without justice is tyrannical.
(5) A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.
(6) The two greatest obstacles to democracy :
the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy and the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.
(7) In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies.
(8) In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
(9) Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
(10) A good politician under democracy is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
(XXX) Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
Bush seems to have no trouble throwing taxpayer money at our military or Iraq, where we have seen no progress but instead a descent into chaos.
It seems as if Bush is only interesting in saving taxpayer money when the proceeds wont go to his friends that sell oil and make bombs.
Foreclosures are the result of mortage lenders making it all to easy to borrow money, and too many folks biting off more debt than they can chew.
Of course, nowadays everything, including tics and mosquitos at the lakes, is all Bush’s fault, as if he doesn’t already have enough legitimate criticism aimed at hi.
“Bush seems to have no trouble throwing taxpayer money at our military or Iraq”
He also doesn’t seem to have trouble throwing it at FEMA contractors or abstinency programs and to renounce dollars from big business and the very rich…
:-/
Gray,
Exactly. Bush will probably spin his wheels on the bridge issue until he finds some friends of his to give the repair money to. Maybe Halliburton can take care of it?
At the point I’m sure Bush will claim it’s a national emergency and that we must give Halliburton (or whoever) a nobid contract pronto! And while we’re at it, let’s repeal construction safety laws so they can make more money!
Shaun, Amanda, Ryan, & Gray,
Very well. Since you all seem to think it’s extremely important for the federal government to fund the construction and/or renovation of our nation’s bridges, tell me:
1) How much money are you proposing the federal government spend?
2) What states and/or cities should this money targeted?
3) Where will the federal government come up with this money?
Is the government to raise taxes to come up with the revenue or is it to simply take it from already existing government programs?
Throwing money at a problem is an easy thing to do, but it’s hardly a way to solve problems. People who argue that we need to fix our infrastructure are quick to demand that we do something about it but are loathe to offer specifics.
It’s one thing to argue that we need to beef up port security. It’s a quite another to suggest that the federal government is responsible for ensuring the upkeep of every single bridge and highway in America. That ought to be a state responsibility. The governor and state legislature of Minnesota are far more qualified to determine which bridges and highways need to be fixed than the president and the U.S. congress.
The governor and state legislature of Minnesota are more qualified to determine which bridges and highways within their own state, I should say.
“Since you all seem to think it’s extremely important for the federal government to fund the construction and/or renovation of our nation’s bridges, tell me:”
Who are you to give orders here? If you want to know how much money is needed, go looking for the necessary information for yourself. Afaik even experts don’t have a plan on how high an investment is needed to catch up with the needed infrastructure repairs yet.
“Throwing money at a problem is an easy thing to do, but it’s hardly a way to solve problems.”
Are you serious? How, do you think, those bridges will get repaired?
a) By giving money to construction teams?
b) Or by simply discussing the problem?
c) Maybe by a new kind of meditation or prayer?
Chose a,b or c or add your idea at d)
Yeah, I know, you will write at d):
Give away the bridge to a private company, let them repair it, and then make some billions by cashing in from the commuters.
That’s the usual answer of government bad – business great conservatives…
That picture! What does he have to feel so smug about? Good grief….
Anyway, I was just going to say, as regards “picking” on Bush, I know there is Bush bashing fatigue in some quarters, and I know Shaun’s post isn’t about that, but is there any less loss of blood, treasure, or chaos generated because some folks are tired of hearing about it?
I didn’t think so.
Gray,
Year after year, the amount of money spent on highway bills goes up and up and up. All that money didn’t prevent the bridge in Minneapolis from going down.
I stand by previous statement. Whether its national security, our highways, our schools–simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t fix the problem.
The federal government spends more money on education today than it did forty years ago, and there’s no evidence to suggest that the quality of education has gone up.
If taxpayers in Minnesota weren’t forced to pay for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere”, Boston’s “Big Dig” and other expensive boondoggle’s, they’d have more money to take care of the intrastructure in their own state.
Consider this. Taxpayers in Minnesota, despite having their own infrastructure problems, are being forced to pay for highways in Alaska, while taxpayers in Alaska are being forced to pay for highways in Minnesota. There’s got to be a more efficient way of building our country’s infrastructure than having people on one state subsidizing the building of highways and bridges in states two or three thousand miles away.
Nice twist there, Shaun.
Please point to where Bush ruled out “dismissed dealing with the nation’s 70,000 structurally deficient bridges until Congress changes the way it spends highway money”
From the stories I’ve been reading he ruled out raising the gas tax to ….. Are you unaware of this particular NUANCE, do you simply not fathom that there are other ways of dealing with problems than raising taxes (gasoline or other) or are you just taking another cheap shot at Bush?
Ah, but you don’t care… you’ve got your rabid fans here cheering you on. were all of us so easily impressed.
Steve Sturm- What alternatives to raising the gas tax are you suggesting? You could charge a toll to cross it and use the money for maintenance, but many jurisdictions already do that- where is all of the toll money going to? I think you should give us a concrete suggestion- if its cut spending -explain what programs should be cut. This will take a multi-billion dollar investment, and as far as I can tell, we need to act fairly quickly.
I agree with Chris- that Bush has no problems handing out federal tax revenue to big GOP donors, who often have not performed up to even a minimal standard on contracts. What, not one word about all of the 12 billion lost in Iraq or the 160,000 weapons unaccounted for? Nothing about the fraud and waste with companies like KBR?
Yet, he is looking out for our tax dollars when it comes to bridge safety and children’s insurance programs. What a guy! How reassuring to know that he knows how best to spend our money.
kim: I’m not making an argument for one thing or another, just pointing out the cheap shot Shaun is taking by making it look like Bush said something he didn’t. like Bush or not, you all ought to have the decency to accurately report what he says and doesn’t say.
And with you not so happy with the way he’s spending our money, I presume you’re pushing for tax cuts?
Actually, I’m disappointed with the way both Democrats and Republicans are spending our money. Both parties criticize each other as being fiscally irresponsible ever as they propose even more spending on their own pet projects.
‘And with you not so happy with the way he’s spending our money, I presume you’re pushing for tax cuts?’
I’m not happy about his priorities. He’s willing to veto a bill that would expand health care access to children of working families, and one that would raise revenue to repair our crumbling infrastructure, but seemingly is blase about the billions being wasted by his big contributors. I don’t mind a tax increase, if the money is spent appropriately, but wouldn’t it be better to examine how money is being wasted by these no-bid contractors?
I agree with Nick, that pet projects are a problem, especially those that the congressman has a vested interest in, but at least most provide some benefit for those in their district.
Increasing the gas tax seems on its face to make sense to those who want to tie usage to taxation: those who drive more, cause more strain on the infrastructure and thus should pay more.
However, a few glitches here: one is that this type of tax is pretty regressive since rich people aren’t necessarily the ones who pay more- think of farmers, truckers, etc who are hurt by this (and consumers who pay the extra at the retail level when that cost gets passed along). Another glitch is that as the tax rises and fuel costs more, a certain amount of conservation will then occur so that the higher rate per gallon doesn’t necessarily translate into that much net gain in revenue.
And consider the history of the current gas taxes and the Highway Superfund. Just like all taxes that are meant to be dedicated for a particular use, it doesn’t take long before Congress and presidential administrations find it too tempting to use the money for other purposes. Both Bush 41 and Clinton ended up raising the gas tax while simultaneously diverting funds into the general treasury for debt reduction instead of continuing to use gas tax for infrastructure maintenance. It looks to me that that’s where we went off track because if that money had stayed in the Highway Trust then we’d have had a better chance of having the funds needed today. They could have looked to other sources to pay down debt but it was easier to raid the fund. Does anyone seriously think that if we raise the gas tax again that the money won’t later be diverted?
“If taxpayers in Minnesota weren’t forced to pay for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhereâ€, Boston’s “Big Dig†and other expensive boondoggle’s, they’d have more money to take care of the intrastructure in their own state.”
Maybe. Maybe not. Do you have seen a balance on that? Could very well be that Minnesota’s highways are subsidized by the folks in NYC and Ca. Btw, the collapsed bridge was build with federal funds…