- I wonder when we'll get straight talk from the president
about the big decisions he's making for our country. For instance, take
his public stance on Iraq and try to square it with his stance on North
Korea. For months, Bush has been telling the American public to prepare
for war with Iraq because of the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of
mass destruction and alleged sponsorship of al-Qaida.
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- Yet, for months Bush had a special intelligence unit
search for a link between al-Qaida and Saddam, only to come up empty. Now
UN inspectors can't find a smoking gun and have asked for more time. In
spite of the inability to develop any evidence of a real Iraqi threat to
the United States, Bush remains bellicose, calling for "regime change"
as the solution for the bad man of Baghdad.
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- Meanwhile, North Korea not only admits it has nuclear
weapons, it has broadcast its desire to export the technology. Intelligence
reports verify North Korean nuclear capability. A few weeks ago, the United
States intercepted a North Korean shipment of missiles to Yemen.
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- Despite the seemingly more immediate danger North Korea
poses, Bush is offering a peaceful resolution with Pyongyang. To date,
there's been no cogent rationale offered for using diplomacy to defuse
the real threat posed by North Korea, and war for the thus-far imagined
threat posed by Iraq, just doublespeak.
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- The president's penchant for misinformation doesn't end
with foreign affairs. Consider his economic stimulus and tax cut package.
You know, the one he doesn't want to hear "class warfare" arguments
about. Whether or not you call it class warfare, ignoring the effects of
a tax change on different income levels is, in economic terms, ignorant.
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- Before you can make a tax change that will actually improve
the economy, you have to know who has really benefitted from the economy.
Most Americans haven't. From 1979 to 1999, on an inflation-adjusted basis,
60 percent of the American work force worked longer, harder and more efficiently.
They also took home less money at the end of that 20-year span than they
did at the beginning. That's almost two-thirds of our country working harder
for less. The truth is, virtually all the growth in our economy during
that period went to just the wealthiest 5 percent of income earners.
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- But wait, there's more. The largest sector of our economy
by far is consumer spending. Low- and middle-income working families are
our best consumers. Putting two and two together, you'd assume that when
the president claims his tax proposal is fair to all Americans, the relief
would be targeted to the vast majority of Americans. You'd also be wrong.
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- According to the Brookings Institute, no matter how you
slice the president's recent proposal, whether it's the break on dividend
taxes or accelerating income tax rate reductions, the lion's share of this
10-year, $674 billion boondoggle goes to the wealthiest 5 percent of income
earners. You know, the same folks who sucked up all the growth in our nation's
economy for two decades. Exactly how the president can keep a straight
face while claiming this proposal benefits most Americans isn't clear.
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- Just the other day, when discussing the Iraq situation,
the president said he's tired of all the lies and deceit. I assume he means
the ones emanating from Baghdad, not the beltway. If he's tired of spin,
how does he think the American public feels about being fed a load of hooey
to justify a war? And if the president doesn't like the nomenclature of
class warfare, then he should stop engaging in it by pushing tax breaks
that overwhelmingly benefit one class--the wealthiest--while ignoring most
working Americans.
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- Ralph Martire is executive director for the Center for
Tax and Budget Accountability.
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- Copyright 2003, Digital Chicago Inc.
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- <http://www.suntimes.com/output/> martire/cst-edt-mart18.html>http://www.suntimes.com/output/>
martire/cst-edt-mart18.html
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