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Ralph Nader > In the Public Interest > Bush – NH – Domestic Short Sightedness

Since the Red Menace is now, not the Soviet bloc, but the wildly surging national debt ($4 trillion), $400 billion annual federal deficits, the debts of states, municipalities and the huge debt burdens of many leveraged, large corporations, the next few generations will have quite a legacy to remember their forebears by every day.

Paying past debts is already the third largest item in the Bush budget. This year, over $200 billion will flow from the taxpayers to Washington just to pay the interest on the debt. Not much benefit to taxpayers from that burden of past profligacy. Bush also conveniently ignores the need to clean up the nation’s pollution and its major contribution to Global warming, ozone depletion and other planetary calamities on the way. He has let his aides, such as John Sununu, ridicule the plain truth that energy efficiency and renewable energy conversion are not only economically superior but are also environmentally benign. Why? Because such rational energy practices displace the sales of Bush’s historic allies and contributors — the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries. Take that posterity!

Compassion for the health, safety and educational well-being of children tends to serve posterity well. Budgets for education, children’s health and other aspects of their well-being are in need. Even basic health care, such as inoculations and pre-natal and neonatal care, is hurting. He proposed a cut in federal aid to libraries from a formerly paltry $140 million last year to $35 billion in the coming year. Libraries provide nurture and learning for millions of children. Take that posterity!

In contrast, Bush is demanding at least $50 billion each year in appropriated funds, not to mention the borrowing, to cover the S&L debacle bailout which the Reagan/Bush regime fostered by their inane deregulation starting in the early eighties. This bailout will cost over the next thirty to forte years (the length of the debt instruments) over a trillion dollars. Then there is the loomingly large bailouts of the failing commercial banks. Take that posterity!

Pushing off the problems of today on to the Americans of tomorrow is arguably the worst domestic trait of any politician. It is snort-sighted, politically cowardly and not a little bullying. After all, children, grandchildren and the yet-to-be born don’t exactly have much voice, much less any lobby for their interests.

A few days ago, just before the New Hampshire primary, Bush imported the best known exponent of Hollywood film violence and mayhem — Arnold Schwarzenegger. Appearing with Bush at an auditorium outside Manchester, Schwarzenegger urged voters to send Pat Buchanan” a message: “Hasta la vista, baby.”

The audience, composed of many youngsters, roared at this line from his recent movie. Bush smiled. He knew what that meant. He has been saying “Hasta la vista, baby” to the right of future generations of Americans to inherit a solvent, workable and healthy America.