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October 19 2004. |
FACTS.
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| As
much as I may dislike adding to the weight of election rhetoric, I'm
gonna do it anyway. It seems like I'm getting a pro-Bush email every
other day, so it's time for some pro-Kerry action. The hardest thing to
do these days is to cut through all the bullshit, double-talk, and
twisted truth (by both candidates, mind you), but I did a little
research on my own and came up with a few facts. Yeah, just a few...
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TAXING.
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PELLS.
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The
tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen 20 percent under
Bush. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers saw their tax
rates drop only 9.3 percent.
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In the 2000
campaign, Bush promised a $5,100 Pell Grant for each eligible college
student. When Bush released his budget in February, he capped the
maximum Pell Grant award at $4,050 for the third year in a row.
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98.
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SUPPORT.
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JOBS.
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Bush
charges that Kerry voted 98 times to raise taxes. But nearly half were
not for tax increases per se, and many others were on procedural motions
or for increasing taxes on cigarettes.
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Although
Bush said that Kerry voted against the Homeland Security bill, Kerry supported it on
final passage.
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Bush is on
track to be the first president in 72 years to preside over a loss of
jobs. Since Bush took office, the country has a net loss of 821,000
jobs.
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SURPLUS.
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UNCONCERNED.
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In 2000,
Bush’s own White House advisors estimated a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next decade, yet the country’s deficit
currently stands at $7.4 trillion.
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On
March 13, 2002, Bush said when asked about the search for Osama bin
Laden: "So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend
that much time on him, we haven't heard much from him...And I
wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure.
And, again, I don't know where he is. I--I'll repeat what I said. I
truly am not that concerned about him."
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DEFICIT.
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The
Rebuttal Issue. |
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The
Congressional Budget Office has estimated that spending on the war on
terrorism and homeland security is responsible for only a small portion
of the overall deficit, while Bush's tax cuts and policy initiatives
account for much of the deficit.
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TRILLIONS.
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CAPS.
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In an
attempt to characterize Kerry as a liberal, Bush charged that Kerry had promised more than $2.2 trillion in new spending over the next 10
years. Ironically, Bush's own tax cut and spending proposals would add
more than $3 trillion to the deficit.
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Bush claims
that capping awards for malpractice lawsuits at $250,000 would reduce
health care costs. However, according to the General Accounting Office
and the Congressional Budget Office such a cap would lower health care
costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent.
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BEHIND.
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IRAQIS.
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REDUCTION.
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Bush has
not only under-funded the No Child Left Behind Act by $28 billion, but
he has also cut funding
for after-school programs by $1 billion.
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Bush has
said that 100,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained to date,
but many trainees have received nothing more than a three-week course in
police procedures. Only 8,000 of the total are police who have received
a full eight-week course of training.
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Bush claims
that Kerry once said he’d have troops out of Iraq in six months. What Kerry actually said was that he believed he could
"significantly reduce" U.S. troop levels in Iraq within six months of taking office.
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BEFORE.
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OPPOSED.
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Twice Bush
said that 75% of al-Qaeda leaders have been "brought to
justice." But Bush was referring to the deaths or arrests of 75
percent of bin Laden's network before
the September 11 attacks, not those who are running the terrorist
organization today.
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Bush said,
"My administration worked with the congress to create the
department of homeland security." Bush actually opposed
creation of the separate department for nearly nine months before
turning around and supporting it.
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27 MILLION.
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DIPLOMACY.
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A recent
Bush ad claims Kerry’s healthcare proposals would put "big
government in charge" of medical decisions. In fact, Kerry's plan
would leave 97% with the insurance they have now--while up to 27 million
who aren't insured would gain coverage.
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The
Republicans have repeatedly said that Kerry and Edwards had voted
"for the war" and "to commit the troops," when in
fact the Iraq resolution that both Kerry and Edwards supported left the decision to
the president and called for intensified diplomacy.
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WAVERING.
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Kerry
has never wavered from his support for giving the President authority to use force in Iraq, nor has he changed his position that he, as president, would not have
gone to war without greater international support:
- May 3 2003: "I said at
the time [we went to war] I would have preferred if we had given
diplomacy a greater opportunity."
- December 14 2003: The
question that Americans want to know is: what is the best way to
proceed? Not what is the most lonely and single-track ideological way to
proceed. I
believe the best way to proceed is to bring other countries to the
table, get some of our troops out of the target, begin to share the
burden."
- January 6 2004: "I
am indeed one of the anti-war candidates. Yes, in the sense that I don't
believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely.
Do
I think this president violated his promises to America?
Yes, I do."
- May 19 2004: “I
think the administration has not done enough of the hard work of
diplomacy, reaching out to nations, building the kind of support
network. I think they clearly
have dropped the ball…and I believe American troops will be
safer and America
will pay less money if we have a broader coalition involved, including
the United Nations."
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September
6 2004: "I would not have done just one thing differently than the
president on
Iraq; I would have done everything differently than
the president on Iraq. I said this from the beginning of the
debate to the walk up to the war. I said, 'Mr. President, don't rush to
war, take the time to build a legitimate coalition and have a plan to
win the peace.'"
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SOURCES.
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Sources: General Accounting Office,
FactCheck.org, the Congressional Budget
Office, The Associated Press, Department of Labor,
The Washington Post.
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2000-2004 by gja.
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