Republicans Pitch Progress While More Americans Ponder Poverty
Commentary ~ August 28, 2004: While hundreds
of rich Republicans gather in New York to exaggerate the achievements
of the Bush administration, an increasing number of real Americans
are being pushed into poverty by the policies of the incumbent presidency.
As the delegates prepared their speeches on how strong America has
become, the United States Census Bureau reported that another 1.3
billion Americans have fallen below the poverty line. During the
same time, the ranks of uninsured Americans swelled by 1.4 million.
The Associated Press reported that this was the third straight
annual increase for both categories – the only numbers actually
going up for Bush.
According to the Census Bureau nearly 36 million people lived below
the poverty line in 2003, or about 12.5% of the population, according
to the bureau. This was up from 34.5 million, or 12.1% in 2002.
While adults have been having a hard time under the Bush administration,
children are suffering the most. According to the report, 12.9 million
children lived in poverty last year, or 17.6 percent of the under-18
population. That was an increase of about 800,000 from 2002, when
16.7 percent of all children were in poverty.
While 150,000 Americans enter the job market each month, the Bush
administration was only able to create an additional 32,000 jobs
in July. Unemployment is now close to 10%, once one correctly factors
in the people who can no longer collect unemployment. Under Bush’s
watch, home foreclosures hit a record high in 2003, and personal
bankruptcies hit an all time high in 2002. Since the beginning of
Bush's presidency in 2000, median household income has dropped a
whopping 3.5 percent. The Bush administration will preside over
the first net loss of jobs since the Great Depression, and has supervised
the highest layoff rate since Reagan.
There is little wonder the rich Republicans assembled in Madison
Square Garden are waving their little flags: the wealthiest 2% in
the United States have enjoyed a 1.1 % increase in average income
since Bush stole the economy.
While the American economy goes to pot, and more Americans than
ever are being pushed into poverty, Bush has poured $2 trillion
into a tax cut for the affluent, chalked up a record $420 billion
deficit, and has seen 1.2 million jobs lost on his watch.
Bush reportedly tried in vain to hide the latest numbers from the
American public by getting his top political appointee at the Census
Bureau to release the data a month earlier than usual. The rescheduling
of the announcement means the bad news for Americans will not come
out in September immediately after the Republican National Convention,
when they have traditionally been released.
The tactic of timing the release of bad news has worked for this
administration in the past. Bush released his military service records
late on a Friday night on the eve of a three day weekend in order
to make sure the story about his poor attendance was seen by as
few people as possible.
The alternative to Bush, John Kerry, highlighted some of the latest
economic news in a speech in Minnesota. “Your wages are going
down, your jobs are going overseas, your health care is disappearing,
and your kids are having a harder time getting the kind of education
they want," Kerry said.
Let’s hope the average American voter in Ohio and Tennessee
actually wakes up and smells the Bushit.
