Editorial A storm is coming

Today a letter from Ed Gillespe was in the mail.

For a contribution, he wants to send me a Republican Party Platinum Card so George Bush can "do what what's right for America by cutting taxes, reforming education, strengthening our energy supply, controlling unnecessary spending and bolstering our national security."

I don't know. George has so far failed miserably on all those counts. Why should he have another four years?

Taxes? George gave tax cuts to the top few percent of Americans, not the rest of us. Bush could have offered tax cuts for the middle class, or the lowest two-thirds of Americans, or small business owners who create most of the jobs, or done something to help with crushing insurance premiums, and we would have spent it and done the economy some good.

Instead, he reduced taxes for rich guys who benefited from the system and are using their wealth to buy political power to keep from having to give anything back.

Reforming education? No Child Left Behind is just another Bush shell game, words with no commitment. No funds, and precious little vision. Just words.

In Oregon, class sizes are increasing, curriculum is crumbling, and we are about to lose the one major advantage this state has always had ... a top notch education system.

Bush is playing politics with our children's future.

Energy supplies? Remember, Bush pretends to have been an oil man. During his presidency, gas prices have risen to the highest they have ever been. Major oil companies play their little game of "shut the refineries down for maintenance" just as demand climbs so they can go drill in the wildlife refuge.

Bush cronies want to use more coal that puts more mercury into my daughter's tuna fish sandwich.

Enron had a major role in setting national energy policy just before that company exploded in an cataclysm of greed, not long after it nearly drove the state of California into bankruptcy. Bush's buddies were setting us up for extortion, Texas style.

Bush wants to fight unnecessary spending? Unnecessary for whom? Roads are bad, Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt.

Bush has presided over the largest budget swing in recent history, from surplus to deficit in less than a single presidential term. Grossly irresponsible is the only phrase that can be used to describe Bush fiscal management.

When Bush does present a budget, he slyly presents it in pieces. The last one didn't include the billions required for the Iraq War. Bush will send us that bill after he's won the election.

Which brings us to national security. Bush started a war where hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis have died under a pretext. It appears more and more likely that Bush people thought they could create a new world order in the Middle East, starting with Iraq.

One can only hope and pray that they were right, since the reason we were told that Americans had to fight and die -- weapons of mass destruction -- don't appear to be there. They probably weren't when we were assured that they were.

Now we are pinned down. But we absolutely need to provide for our troops, give them all the support neccessary to hopefully succeed in their mission.

If we fail, Iraq becomes another Afghanistan before the end of the year. Afghanistan remains a place of lawlessness that still harbors terrorists who plot new ways to strike at us.

In the meanwhile, Bush has proven that our policy of strike first, sort out consequences later, has thrown away all the goodwill generated across the world for America since World War II.

So I am going to decline the request to help Bush stay in office through buying a Republican National Committee Platinum card. It feels like a storm is coming, and their card won't buy me an umbrella.