Bush bill suppresses funding for students and appropriates $2m for presidential yacht

Immediately after Election Day, President Bush promised that he would use his political capital to bring unity back to America. Less than a month later, he is about to sign a spending bill which voids all those nice words and promises. It is not what the President says that matters, it is what he does that counts.

These are a few things which the spending bill contains:

Pell grants will become unavailable for 85,000 students that were receiving them and another 1.2 million students will have their Pell Grant funding decreased. On the other hand, the bill appropriates $2 million to buy a presidential yacht.

Farmers lose over $400 million of soil conservation money. On the other hand, the bill funds the American Cotton Museum in Texas.

The President's commitment to education remains under funded by roughly $400 million from what the President promised in order to support local schools under "No Child Left Behind." On the other hand, the president has agreed to sign over $1 million for seafood marketing efforts in Alaska—home of Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens.

Even worse, the money for this bill does not exist. Every penny of these appropriations adds to the deficit. Why? Because two weeks ago, the Republicans passed and the President signed a bill authorizing nearly an additional $2 trillion dollars of borrowing, which your children and grandchildren will have to pay back—with interest. Two weeks before that, the President signed a bill giving $139 billion to big corporations like oil and tobacco companies and even Chinese manufacturers of ceiling fans.

One of the most spectacular parts of this week's bill, added in by Rep. Ernest Istook (R—Okla.), allows the staff members of congressmen and senators to rummage through any American's tax returns. Fortunately, Senator Kent Conrad (D—N.D.) of North Dakota noticed this while it was being rushed through Congress to get to the President's desk. As of this writing, this provision has not been taken out of the bill—so nosey congressmen, senators and their staffs will be able to pry through your tax returns.

Americans deserve a better government than this. I very much hope that Democrats will provide at least a strong opposition force to this kind of spending and to these kinds of gross invasions of personal privacy, which the President's party apparently thinks are justified.

I hope the Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress will stand up for better priorities than this administration has, no matter how nice the President's words. Nice words will not save our farmers, our environment and our schools. Nice words will not protect the privacy of our tax records. Leaders who understand the value of a dollar will protect us and our children, and leaders who respect Americans as individuals will give America back the kind of country we deserve.

Loyal and patriotic Americans have an obligation to their country to stand up for fiscal policies which make America stronger, not weaker.

What do you think?

Is a presidential yacht really necessary?

Corinne
http://www.christianresistance.com

 

Absolutely. It is a well know political tactic.

Corinne

 

Maybe not one of the biggest, but surely big enough to take the Bush and the Blair couples for a dinner cruise.

Amazing thing to see that the Queen of England recently gave up her yacht(the "Britannia") because it cost too much, but Bush is buying one for presidential use, at the tax payers' expense. Bet you CNN or Fox did not report on this.

Corinne

 

I may be leaning left more than right on some issues (although not on all), this one included. I think it is undecent to buy a presidential yacht at the tax payer's expense,and a lot of americans, if they knew about it, would also think that. There is little justification for such a purchase. Two million bucks may not buy you a big yacht, but that money would be better used buying bulletproof jackets and proper desert equipment for the troops in Iraq.

Corinne

 

He already spends more time on vacation than any other president before him, according to the media. I guess he must be a fan of deep sea fishing/diving and that the yacht will be moored in Florida more often than not.

In the mean time hopes for a grant for a few hundred poor students are sinking faster than fast. Nice.

Corinne

 

Typical. You want to make us believe that an artificial $8m profit realised on a boat, even a historical relic like this one, justifies cutting grants for defavorised students?

Corinne

 

Yeah, it's not as though anyone tried to warn you. The sad thing, though, is that in 2008, the GOP will likely run someone at least as bad, any you'll vote for him, too. </font>[/QUOTE]My guess is that Santorum will run - LOL. He is even worse than Bush. A fanatic.

Corinne

 

When you have democrats like Howard Dean being more fiscally conservative than most republican conservatives, there has to be something wrong with the "democrats spend too much" line. It is actually the opposite, 9/11 economic recession or not.

Bush has been in power for 4 years, and the budget had sunk to its lowest in the past year or two. Nothing to do with Clinton arrears. ]

I know wars don't come cheap.Morality: don't go to war if you can't pay for it without mortgaging the country and the next three generations who will have to pay for it.

Corinne