Just when I think my personal outrage meter has absolutely, positively topped out at its highest possible point, George W. Bush opens his mouth and says something that sends it into overdrive.
Earlier this week I wrote a diary about a current news item. The story didn't, on its face, necessarily encompass politics or the government's role in possibly creating the circumstances which made the story political to me. The issue of the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis is another area where I know we have to dig deeper, to foist some accountability on an Administration that has created choices not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.
It was with this context, then, that I was highly curious to hear what Bush would say in his remarks moments ago from the Rose Garden. These remarks, it turned out, were frankly shocking. Make the jump
Let's review:
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Grover Norquist
It's funny (not in a "ha ha" sense - in an outrageous sense) how some of the most visible failures of this particular policy statement involve people, American citizens and human beings all, literally drowning as a result of the policy in question.
So I audibly groaned as I listened to CNN on satellite radio this morning and heard that Bush would be making a statement from the White House Rose Garden, and that this statement expected to include references to the ongoing disaster of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I thought to myself, "I don't know how he's going to comment on this - how can he avoid the 800lb. gorilla in the room that makes his government responsible?" I suppose I expected to hear a glossed-over statement of emotional support. That was probably the best this guy could do, given the circumstances and the underlying causes.
Man was I wrong. Here's what Bush said less than an hour ago:
Good morning. I just finished a Cabinet meeting. One of the things we discussed was the terrible situation there in Minneapolis. We talked about the fact that the bridge collapsed, and that we in the federal government must respond and respond robustly to help the people there not only recover, but to make sure that lifeline of activity, that bridge, gets rebuilt as quickly as possible.
To that end, Secretary Peters is in Minneapolis, as well as Federal Highway Administrator Capka. I spoke to Governor Pawlenty and Mayor Rybak this morning. I told them that the Secretary would be there. I told them we would help with rescue efforts, but I also told them how much we are in prayer for those who suffered. And I thank my fellow citizens for holding up those who are suffering right now in prayer.
Blah blah. The opening was pretty much what I expected. Frankly, it was pretty much the only thing he could have said whie maintaining some level of decency. Then he pissed me off to a level I didn't know I had in me:
We also talked about -- in the Cabinet meeting talked about the status of important pieces of legislation before the Congress. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the fact that how disappointed we are that Congress hasn't sent any spending bills to my desk. By the end of this week, members are going to be leaving for their month-long August recess. And by the time they will return, there will be less than a month before the end of the fiscal year on September the 30th, and yet they haven't passed one of the 12 spending bills that they're required to pass. If Congress doesn't pass the spending bills by the end of the fiscal year, Cabinet Secretaries report that their departments may be unable to move forward with urgent priorities for our country.
Oh. My. God. Somehow, the bridge collapse in Minneapolis seems to be the fault of the Democratic Congress. Because they haven't passed spending bills, Cabinet Secretaries will be "unable to move forward" with "urgent priorities". By implication, one of thse priorities is infrastructure maintenance. As my blood pressure rose and my mouth fell open, he continued:
This doesn't have to be this way. The Democrats won last year's election fair and square, and now they control the calendar for bringing up bills in Congress. They need to pass each of these spending bills individually, on time, and in a fiscally responsible way.
The budget I've sent to Congress fully funds America's priorities. It increases discretionary spending by 6.9 percent. My Cabinet Secretaries assure me that this is adequate to meet the needs of our nation.
(See 'drowning government in a bathtub' above for further understanding the adequacy of needs being met)
Unfortunately, Democratic leaders in Congress want to spend far more. Their budget calls for nearly $22 billion more in discretionary spending next year alone. These leaders have tried to downplay that figure. Yesterday one called this increase -- and I quote -- "a very small difference" from what I proposed. Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference. And that difference will keep getting bigger. Over the next five years it will total nearly $205 billion in additional discretionary spending. That $205 billion averages out to about $112 million per day, $4.7 million per hour, $78,000 per minute.
Put another way, that's about $1,300 in higher spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for the next five years. That's a lot of money -- even for career politicians in Washington. In fact, at that pace, Democrats in Congress would have spent an extra $300,000 since I began these remarks.
There's only one way to pay for all this new federal spending without running up the deficit, and that is to raise your taxes. A massive tax hike is the last thing the American people need. The plan I put forward would keep your taxes low and balance the budget within five years, and that is the right path for our country.
I want to thank OMB Director Rob Portman for his hard work in developing this plan. This was Rob's last Cabinet meeting. Laura and I wish him and his family well. And I call on the Senate to confirm his successor, Jim Nussle, so we can work together to keep our government running, to keep our economy growing, and to keep our nation strong.
Thank you for your time.
Where do I start? First, I'm sure the people who are dead, trapped in their cars underwater in the Mississippi River under the wreckage of a bridge in Minneapolis would have appreciated an increase in spending and a responsible policy to apply monies to the maintenance and safety of our infrastructure. I'm sure their families, when they pick their heads up from unspeakable grief, would feel the same. Even the rich ones - the ones for which we need only roll back unwise tax cuts - possibly feel this way.
Second, I find it preposterous and flat-out insulting that this President has the unmitigated GALL to talk about a supposed $78K/minute cost to the spending bills proposed by Congress when the War in Iraq, Bush's folly, costs $500K per minute:
A Quaker pacifist group is telling Americans that one day of the Iraq War costs $720 million US dollars, or $500,000 a minute.
The group says a day's expenditure is the equivalent of 84 new schools or health care for more than 160,000 people.
For the sake of balance, I found a 2004 article that placed the per-minute cost at $122,820 (clearly an old estimate and one that has changed as spending on Bush's Folly has increased). Any way you cut it, from the lowest estimate to the highest, eliminating the ill-fated and unwinnable war in Iraq would leave us at a SURPLUS and able to make the investments we need in our country - Health care, education, employment, infrastructure - you name it. The idea that $78K/minute (and I haven't fact-checked those figures) is an outrage in light of the per-minute spending on the Iraq War infuriates me.
And finally, I find it amazing that Bush can actually walk upright given the absolutely gargantuan size his balls must be. You'd think their sheer weight would cause him to simply tip forward onto his face. At the end of a week where it was widely publicized that the Iraq War could cost more than $1 TRILLION (that's 1,000 billion dollars, folks), the idea that somehow the Democratic Congress' request for an additional $22 billion to avoid infrastructure disasters such as those we are seeing in Minneapolis is to blame pushes me over the edge. Somehow Bush is trying to say that Congress' insistence on securing spending to tend to the day-to-day needs of safeguarding of American Citizens is to blame - this despite the obvious fact that six disastrous years of a Republican-controlled White House and Congress surely and certainly undercut investment in the most basic of governmental requirements.
In its own way, it's Katrina all over again. I can't understand the fucking NERVE of this guy coming out and saying what he did.
Update [2007-8-2 12:11:7 by RenaRF]: Use Common Sense suggests in this comment that Minnesotans contact their Senator and demand Bush issue an apology for his statements. I agree. So:
Norm Coleman's Contact Form
Amy Klobuchar's Contact Form
Bury their inboxes.
Update [2007-8-2 12:54:6 by RenaRF]: The always wonderful Meteor Blades adds this comment, which definitely needs to be in the body of this diary:
Inevitable bridge collapse ... (0 / 0)
Not that it was inevitable that THIS bridge would collapse, but bridge collapses are inevitable given what the American Society of Civil Engineers said in its Infrastructure Report Card 2005:
Between 2000 and 2003, the percentage of the nation's 590,750 bridges rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete decreased slightly from 28.5% to 27.1%. However, it will cost $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to eliminate all bridge deficiencies. Long-term underinvestment is compounded by the lack of a Federal transportation program.