Bush Helps Terrorists Win
21 Jun 2002
One response of the Bush administration to the 9/11 attack has been to fight the so called "War on Terrorism" by chiseling away at our freedom. We now have armed military personnel patrolling our civilian air terminals and communities. Turning the United States into a police state will not remove terrorism from the face of the earth.
The only effective way to fight terrorists is to beef up our intelligence agencies so they can head off future threats. After their obvious failure, it is apparent that we need to have a deep investigation of what went wrong, fix the problem and move on. The answer is not to give these agencies unconstitutional powers, nor is the answer to create yet more bureaucracy in the form of a new cabinet seat. Undoubtedly we will need to spend more money on this effort, but here too Bush's leadership has failed the nation.
Instead of making the hard but responsible decision to end his massive tax cut for the wealthy and big business in light of a very changed world, unanimously he and the rest of the Republican leadership choose to go back to deficit spending. This was an easy short term political decision, but a very bad choice for the long term good of the nation. Two budgets into this administration and already they are irresponsibly increasing our debt and by their own admission, they will generate deficit spending into the foreseeable future.
If we have to raise taxes it would be much better if it was for schools, ending poverty and improving our infrastructure. However, in these sad times it is of paramount importance to insure that our intelligence agencies be their best ever, that our military be ready and that our local defenses be up to the job. The only way to do this is by good planning and funding the problem properly. The only responsible way to get that funding is to raise taxes and not leave the burden of paying for our safety to our children.
Steve McGourty