Definition of Insanity: The Bush Administration

By: Rich Procter

First, let's define insanity: to do the things you've always done and expect different results.

Now let's see how this applies to the Bush Administration (again and again and again)...

The Economy

When the Scalia Five delivered Bush into office, unemployment was low, the stock market was booming, the surplus was threatening to pay off the national debt, and Americans were optimistic about the future. The Bush solution? Huge tax cuts, heavily weighted toward the wealthy. We could afford this because of the surplus, see? And it would make the economy grow even bigger!

Okay, so now we're two catastrophic years into the Dubya debacle. Unemployment - way up. Stock market - way, way down. Surplus? Bwaa haa haa! Try a staggering deficit that even Bush's sunniest advisers admit will continue to the end of the decade (thanks to tax cut #1). Americans wary, if not downright depressed about the future. Bush solution? (wait for it... wait for it...) TAX CUTS HEAVILY WEIGHTED TOWARD THE RICH!

I defy anyone to name a single expert, pundit, or columnist who thinks this is going to work who isn't on the payroll of the Bush Administration, on the payroll of a wingnut think tank, or on the payroll of Rupert Murdoch. Average Americans are muttering: "This is insane..." and they're right.

Privatization

The Bushies love privatizing everything in sight, because they pretend to HATE HATE HATE "bureaucracy". What they really hate are public employees beyond the reach of old-style political machine patronage. Now Bush is making noises about doing away with the Medicare "bureaucracy" and delivering your parents and grandparents (and eventually YOU) into the loving arms of private enterprise, in the form of an HMO (if you want a prescription drug benefit).

Remember those "Harry and Louise" ads the right wing ginned up to kill the Clinton health plan? HORRORS! Under Clinton, you wouldn't be able to see your own Doctor! Guess what? What we got instead were HMO's - the Republican answer to health care, where you NOT ONLY can't see your own Doctor, you can't see ANY Doctor until you're approved by the stone-hearted HMO pencil-pusher who has the power to rule that cancer surgery "Experimental/Not Covered".

HMO's are a terrific example of Republican privatization in action. Stockholders love them, because they produce huge profit numbers (ask Dr. Frist). Republicans love them, because they "reduce the size of government". The only people who don't love them are responsible physicians, because they make meaningful health care impossible, and patients, because the point of the HMO system is make it as hard as possible to see an actual physician, and actually receive care.

Of course, if the numbers-cruncher at your HMO denies you the health care you need and you die, your relatives can always sue... until the Bush "tort reform" bill gets passed.

De-Regulation

Here's another certifiably insane Bush idea that he keeps hawking even though it keeps not working. Bush wants to "take the shackles" off business, and let businessmen like Ken Lay run free like the young capitalist stallions they are. Bush is all for making regulatory compliance "voluntary". Let's see, how many times does this idea have to flop before we chuck it in the garbage for good? Anybody remember the Savings and Loan deregulation debacle of the 80's? Anybody but Rush Limbaugh thrilled with broadcasting deregulation? Anybody think that money-mad pirates like the Enron boys care two hoots about the widows and orphans they gleefully ripped off, thanks to the miracle of energy market deregulation? Anyone think that Bush's fat cat pals aren't dry-washing their hands in anticipation of the next round of deregulation, figuring new and creative ways to game the system? Anyone care the Harvey "Kinder, Gentler" Pitt is still in charge over at the SEC?

Invading Iraq

We've got to invade Iraq! They're in bed with al-Qaeda! They're not? Ahhhhh... they've got atomic weapons! They don't? Ahhhhh... they won't let U.N. weapons inspectors in! They will? Ahhhhh... they're restarting their atomic energy program, to make nuclear weapons! Ooops! That's North Korea! Ahhhhhh...

This is the most insane idea of all. Who wants this war? Our allies? Nope. The American people? I don't think so. A small group of chickenhawk think-tank ideologues eager to try out their bizarre cocktail party theories? Like how people in the Middle East are going to embrace western-style Democracy after we rain fiery death down on innocent civilians in a Dresden-style bombing of Baghdad, and use "tactical nuclear weapons" to get at those poison gas bunkers?

What's most horrifying about all this is that, if every calamitous situation Bush has created goes from horrible to catastrophic, his solutions are going to be exactly the same. The man lives in an echo chamber of right-wing wishful thinkers telling him how right he is, and how his mobius-strip logic is infallible. Too bad reality doesn't agree with him.