Domestic Tranquility and the General Welfare (for the rich)

 Bush's domestic policies are one bad pill after another. From education, to the economy, healthcare, worker rights, and the environment, one policy after another cuts or weakens protections and services working people need to get by or for defense against the corporate giants. Whose side is Bush on? Not yours.

According to the American Federation of Teachers (not the union described by Education Secretary Rod Paige as a terrorist organization, that was the National Education Association), Bush has failed education. He has frozen Pell Grants, which are one of the most important programs that provides free money to poor college students. Very little new money has been injected into the higher education system, already floundering under enormous budget cuts, under this administration. Most of Bush's policies in this area have increased the debt burdens of current and future college students.

He has cut numerous job training and vocational programs. From 2003 to the present, he fought for about $800 million in cuts. This year he has proposed eliminating Youth Opportunity Grants, which currently services about 50,000 young people looking for job skills.

He has attacked the public education system with the discredited voucher system and through underfunding the No Child Left Behind Act by over $9 billion. Both of these concepts feed into one another: underfund public schools and force parents to look for alternatives in the private system (which doesn't educate students as well) with vouchers (which don't cover the cost of private education).

Cuts in training and education have gone to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Limiting access to eduction comes right at a time when unemployment and the difficulty of finding work rival all time highs. Policies that support outsourcing and cuts in overtime pay actually give jobs away or are designed to make current workers work longer without hiring new workers.

While workers are staying on the clock longer, they are also more concerned about getting sick. While the Bush administration has done absolutely nothing to stem the tide of growing number of people without healthcare coverage (the total grew to about 43 million), he has fought for bigger profits for pharmaceuticals and HMOs.

The recent Medicare law provides only "spotty" prescription drug coverage for seniors and actually may increase the rolls of those who are excluded. It does nothing to control the skyrocketing price of drugs, which are expected to grow by 15 to 20% this year. Additionally, the administration lied about the full cost of the bill: it was about $140 billion more than what they told Congress.

We can afford to get sick less, but more poisons are being injected into our air and water under the Bush amdinistration. Cuts in environmental protection programs and enforcement of laws have seen the rise of such hazards as mercury and arsenic in the water. Weaker fuel economy standards and little enforcement of the Clean Air Act have produced more air pollution.

Who needs to breathe anyway?

Don't get sick, don't breathe, and don't try to go back to school when you're laid off. This is life in neo-con America. The only things the Bush administration seems willing to fund fully are tax cuts for the rich and war.