Your Vote Matters

Yesterday, I was reading that President Bush was starting his “victory lap”. He’s taking a few tours to point out the accomplishments of his Presidency -- before historians start defining it by its failures. I got a chuckle out of the part that said he didn’t want to be defined by the Iraq War. Not a problem. He'll be defined by the Iraq War and the “Crash of 2008” and a bunch of other failures.

No failure stands out in my mind more than his failure to run the Government. I’m not talking about the big decisions that define history. I’m talking about the little day-to-day decisions that make the government run. He put a bunch of ideologues in charge and let them run amok.

The Washington Post had a story about yet another one -- Elaine Chow at the Labor Department.

Labor Dept. Accused of Straying From Enforcement

”The next labor secretary will be taking charge of an agency widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety. “

Shocked, I’m telling you. I’m just shocked. The number of dead miners doubled, funding was cut for OSHA and the GAO calls their investigations “inadequate”. Who would have expected such behavior out of a Heritage Foundation alumni ? George Bush would have. That is the reason he hired her.

Certainly by now you have to understand that this behavior is deliberate. George Bush has been quite effective at running the government (into the ground.) It’s just that his policies have led to one disaster after another.

”One area where the department became a more rigorous enforcer was in the oversight of labor unions, critics say. New rules required more rigorous financial reports from about 20,000 union locals.

The Bush administration said the reporting requirements better informed workers how unions spent their money. Critics differed. The administration "used that as a tool to weaken and discredit organized labor," Lilly said.“

President Bush would have you believe he is ideologically opposed to regulation. Yet he willfully uses it to weaken unions. He’s not opposed to regulations. He’s opposed to unions. Actions speak louder than words.

The Bush Administration uses this as another wedge issue -- an Us vs. Them issue. Saxby Chambliss is marching to the exact same beat. He’s in a runoff for the Senate today. If you live here in Georgia, you get to say “Yea” or “Nay”.

I think there is something wrong in a country where an airline can go into bankruptcy to default on its pensions and, yet, I get to keep my frequent flier miles. Sorry for the literary whiplash but I want to get your attention. Think on that a minute. Suppose your airline went bankrupt and your frequent flier miles disappeared. Then the airline came out of bankruptcy but your frequent flier miles didn’t. Would you fly on them again ? Turn it around and imagine it was your pension that disappeared. It’s not hard see how twisted our priorities have become is it ?

This is the kind of country that George W. Bush has left us. It is the kind of country that Saxby Chambliss believes in. Businesses first, people second.

I said “no thanks”. I voted for Jim Martin. I hope you will too.

Don Brown
December 2, 2008