Bush's people

The haves, NOT the have-nots:

Yes, these were Bush's people: the masters of finance, agribusiness and the military-industrial complex and they had reason to cheer. Never mind that the number of young women and men killed in the war in Iraq had reached 3,092. Never mind that hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets of Mexico City because the new economics of corn production has driven up the price of tortillas, threatening their livelihood; that they were demanding that revision be made in the 'free trade' agreement that made it possible for the U.S. traders to raise the price to control a large portion of their food market. Never mind that when the new U.S. employment figures were released two days after hoopla on the trading floor, unemployment had held pretty steady but the joblessness rate for young African Americans in January reached 29.1 percent, up from 26.2 percent in December, even though black unemployment overall had declined somewhat. Never mind that with our economy, considered to be the engine for the world economy, we cannot marshal the resources necessary to guarantee the people, whose lives were disrupted and decimated by hurricane Katrina, that they can once again live in a viable community. Or that the President, who once promised a post-Katrina 'Marshal Plan', can give a State of the Union address and not mention New Orleans.

Yes, for those cheering on the Stock Exchange floor, the economy is doing well. The problem is that the high profits being engendered are not being shared proportionately. There is what the Nation magazine termed, 'The destructive inequalities embedded in our supposedly healthy economy' and increasing economic insecurity of the country's working people. The President is acutely aware that as he tries to shift the public debate from his disastrous foreign policies to the resilience of the economy, the inequities of the returns hangs over anything he may say. He is aware that there is widespread public recognition that the policies he has pursued have – to put it simply – benefited those who need more money the least rather than those who need it most. That extends from his tax cuts for the well-to-do, his healthcare plan, which is really a new tax on working people, to his latest schemes to reduce Medicare benefits.