[Peace-discuss] :FW: What Bush's hometown paper has to say...

[jencart]

Sorry this is cut off, but you get the idea.   Jenifer C.

Kerry Will Restore 
American Dignity
2004 Iconoclast Presidential Endorsement
 

By The Editors of the Lone Star Iconoclast, Crawford Texas.



Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:


* Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits. * Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans' benefits and military pay. * Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
* Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
* Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
* Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and * Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.


These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.
The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.


Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.


Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.


President Bush has announced plans to change the Social Security system as we know it by privatizing it, which when considering all the tangents related to such a change, would put the entire economy in a dramatic tailspin. 


The Social Security Trust Fund actually lends money to the rest of the government in exchange for government bonds, which is how the system must work by law, but how do you later repay Social Security while you are running a huge deficit? It's impossible, without raising taxes sometime in the future or becoming fiscally responsible now. Social Security money is being used to escalate our deficit and, at the same time, mask a much larger government deficit, instead of paying down the national debt, which would be a proper use, to guarantee a future gain.


Privatization is problematic in that it would subject Social Security to the ups, downs, and outright crashes of the Stock Market. It would take millions in brokerage fees and commissions out of the system, and, unless we have assurance that the Ivan Boeskys and Ken Lays of the world will be caught and punished as a deterrent, subject both the Market and the Social Security Fund to fraud and market manipulation, not to mention devastate and ruin multitudes of American families that would find their lives lost to starvation, shame, and isolation.


Kerry wants to keep Social Security, which each of us already owns. He says that the program is manageable, since it is projected to be solvent through 2042, with use of its trust funds. This would give ample time to strengthen the economy, reduce the budget deficit the Bush administration has created, and, therefore, bolster the program as needed to fit ever-changing demographics. 


Our senior citizens depend upon Social Security. Bush's answer is radical and uncalled for, and would result in chaos as Americans have never experienced. Do we really want