Yesterday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Myers reported to Congress that in fact the military is overstretched. His assessment is if we have another conflict it will take longer to deal with the conflict and there is an increased risk to our military which translates into higher casualties due to our limited manpower. In election 2000, George W. Bush acknowledged that the military, especially the Army, was about 40,000 under strength. After the Supreme Court elected Bush...

The Bush policies have been harming the military and again today the Department of the Army announced for the third month in a row they have failed to achieve their recruiting needs. At the present time, the Army is experiencing a 15% shortfall in its recruiting goal for this year. In addition to the problems that Bush has created for the active component, the National Guard and Reserves have likewise founded it impossible to meet their retention and recruiting goals. If the Department...

The latest polls show the following support for the policies of George W. Bush: Support for his Iraq Policy 42% of Americans Support for his Social Security policy 35% of Americans Maybe it's time for George to resign and give the job to his wife Laura

Now that Congress will be looking at specific proposals regarding Social Security, we need to refocus on the real problem. The individual accounts have taken up most of the discussion and have nothing to do with the funding problem of Social Security. The issue is the ability of Social Security payout promised benefits to future retirees. The funding problem is because of the large number of people who were born after WWII. It has nothing to do with converting the system to a part...

George W. Bush finally came out of the closet on how he wants to fund his private accounts within Social Security. He wants to cut the benefits for 70% of Social Security recipients! It is one thing to consider cutting Social Security benefits for the wealthiest 5 or 10% of retirees but it is quite another matter to propose cutting benefits to 70% of retirees. This revelation should be the last nail in the private account coffin of George W. Bush. Although Bush does not have to...

After the delightful pictures of President Bush walking hand-in-hand with Prince Bandar, we learned that he failed to do anything about record oil prices. In 2000, when gasoline was selling for $1.61 per gallon and oil was $28 a barrel, Bush chastised Clinton for high fuel prices and told him to "jawbone" the prices down with the oil producers. Well so much for that idea. Oil is more than $50 barrel and gasoline is $2.26 per gallon and the Bush's jawboning has done nothing to lower o...

Last night Lou Dobbs had a segment about the totalization agreement between United States and Mexico which George W. Bush has agreed to with the President of Mexico. I listened in disbelief to what was being said. I could not believe the president would approve such a provision. In essence this totalization agreement allows U S Social Security benefits to be paid for work performed while Mexican workers were illegally in the United States. This morning I searched Google to see if...

I have written many blogs about the impact of the policy we have been following on the American economy. Many of the Joe users refute as “my opinion” many of the things I reported. Below are a series of actual data retrieved from federal government agencies using the Google search engine: Item Dec 2000 March 2005 Source National Debt $5.7 Trillion $ 7.7 Trillion ...

This week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the average weekly wage data for blue-collar and non-supervisory white-collar workers. This group constitutes 80% of the American workforce and over the past 12 months, from March 2004 until March 2005, the average weekly wage for this 80% has dropped. The economic recovery has only helped 20% of the American population and harmed the remaining 80%. How can anyone claim the Bush economic policies are helping America? The economic...

The impact of the recent increases in oil and gasoline prices are worse than a tax increase because they impact every segment of the population. The higher costs are the result skyrocketing demand with no comparable increase in supply. This is true in the production of crude or as well as refined products such as gasoline and heating oil. The Bush energy policies do NOTHING to help increase the supply of oil in the immediate or near term. The only component of the most recent e...

The proposal that emerged during the first Bush term was a taxpayer-funded giveaway to large mature energy companies and the energy company executives helped themselves. The energy bill contained a plethora of issues that Bush wanted to push through Congress. The shortcomings of his energy policy were so numerous that it is hard to know where to begin. First, the overall cost of his proposal was just short of $50 Billion. Second, the vast majority of the money would have gone to large ...

The 1040's for Bush and Cheney are on the web. Here are the results from their tax returns: In 2004 Bush had taxable income Line 35 of $784, 219 and paid 26.4% in Federal Income tax. In 2001 Bush before his tax cuts he had taxable income of $811,100 and paid 30.8 % in Federal Income taxes. The Big winner is Cheney. In 2004, he had taxable income of $1,734,373 and paid 21.3% in Federal Income taxes. In 2001 Cheney had taxable income of $4,356,635 and paid 38% in Federal Income Tax...

lets get to the facts of what the increase in the federal deficit has been over the past eight years. The source of this information is the Bureau of public debt of the United State's treasure. Joe user's access this information directly by going to the following web site: www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm As if 30 September Increase over prior year in Billions 2005 (projected) ...

Wednesday the House voted to end the Federal Estate Tax. Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif said those pushing to retain this tax "still want to pry lots of cash out of the cold dead fingers of America's deseased enterpreneurs". Lets be clear. This would cost between $30 -40 Billion EVERY YEAR from the federal tax revenue which is already $675 Billion short of a balanced budget in 2005. In 2009, the law would priovide a $3.5 Million per person exemption and then begin imposing the tax on estates ...

Today on Meet the Press Pat Robertson and Jay Rockefeller talked about the report of the Presidential Commission on Intelligence. It was clear from their discussion that a number of intelligence agencies told the administration and the world that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction or the ability to produce them. The Department of Energy clearly indicated that Saddam had no nuclear capability. Elements of the CIA, the U N chief weapons inspector and the head of ...