Editor,
While it irks me to hear President Bush bragging to the news media about how strong the economy is, it bothers me more to see news media reporters not questioning his statements. In the America he's living in, every American is enjoying prosperity. Iraq and Afghanistan are examples of flowering democracy; our environment is clean; all our children are learning and the government is in capable hands.
Where is this place? I'd like to move there, because in the America I'm living in, things do not look so good. I look at America's economic indicators, such as trade, deficits, jobs, debt, tax cuts, wealth gap, wages and poverty, and they paint an entirely different picture for me.
The budget surplus Bush inherited in 2001 was $5.6 trillion. Since 2001, the budget deficits amassed by Bush amount to $8.5 trillion. The total national debt the year before Bush took office was $5.7 trillion. Today, it has grown to $8.4 trillion and is increasing by $1.75 billion each day.
Bush's tax cuts have turned out to be a giveaway for the rich. In 2001, the average tax cut for people making less than $50,000 was $425; for people making $1 million it was $59,216; and for people making more than $10 million it was $521,905. Then, in 2006, the extension of tax cuts for capital gains and dividends resulted in an average cut of $3 for people making under $50,000 and $59,972 for people making $1 million or more.
The net job creation during the Clinton administration was 22.7 million. The net job creation since Bush took office in 2001 is only 2.6 million.
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The ratio of average CEO pay to average worker's pay in 1982 was 42 to one, compared to 300 to one in 2003. In 2006, it is up to 431 to one. Among developed nations, the U.S. ranks third for income disparity between the richest and all others. Yet Congress members have the audacity to vote against raising the minimum wage while increasing their own pay every year for the past eight years, which presently stands at $168,500 a year.
Although the economy continues to grow, the number of Americans living below the poverty level has increased by 5.4 million under Bush. The total number of Americans presently living below the poverty level is around 37 million. Presently, the U.S. ranks first in poverty rate among developed nations, in addition to having the most billionaires, which at the present time stands at 269.
What's worse is that our own legislators, Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson, strongly support Bush's imaginary state of affairs. During election time, they have the gall to come and throw us a few small bones and pretend that they represent us in Washington.
Nahum Castillo
Daily Lobo reader
