Reasons not to vote for Bush

I think President George W. Bush is one of the worst president's in our country's history.  I do not believe he is concerned with the needs of the average citizen, but works mainly to help the wealthy, the oil companies and the drug companies.  Even if you are not a fan of John Kerry, consider what the Bush Administration has cost us and ask yourself if you think the country can take another four years of George W. Bush in the White House.   I have written this to show that I understand why I am not voting for Bush.  I believe there are also many good reasons to vote for Kerry, but I really want to give people who are considering voting for Bush something to think about.  Any input (good or bad) is accepted and appreciated.  Please note, I do not believe politics are worthy of getting into a personal fight with someone.  I will gladly debate issues, but in the end I won't hold anyone's political views against them.  I have some family and friends who may vote Bush and if they do I won't hold it against them.  If you are someone who is considering voting for Bush, please keep these things in mind.  Do you really want this guy to be our president? 

Keep in mind some of these issues when making your decision on who to vote for.

• Nearly half of the Bush Tax Cuts went to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.  That leaves half for the other 99% of us.
• When Bush took office, we had a budget surplus and we were paying off the national debt.  Under Bush, we have record budget deficits (over $400 billion). 
• To help make up the budget deficit, the Bush Administration and Republican Congress are spending the Social Security surplus rather than saving that money to insure that program will remain viable further into the future.  
• President Bush resisted the creation of the 9/11 Commission and did so only after intense pressure from victims families.  Even then, the administration strongly resisted allowing the National Security Advisor to appear under oath and the president and vice-president were only willing to testify together, not under oath.
• War with Iraq was justified to prevent terrorism from spreading and to stop Saddam Hussien's weapons of mass destruction program.  Among the 9/11 Commission findings were that Iraq did not have a weapons of mass destruction program and there were no links between Iraq and al Qaeda. 
• The war with Iraq has alienated many of our allies across the world and peoples of the world resent the United States.  After 9/11, we had the sympathy of the world.  With the arrogance and "go it alone" attitude of the Bush Administration, we have squandered the goodwill we had after 9/11 and replaced it with resentment.
• The Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have damaged international relations and withdrawn the United States from the international community by withdrawing American support for the climate change treaty, the international court on war criminals, the anti-ballistic missile treaty and from the nuclear test ban treaty.
• The true costs of the Medicare prescription drug program were withheld from Congress in order to get passage of the bill.  It was well known that if costs exceeded $400 billion, 13 Republican Senators would vote against the bill.  The actual costs of the program are expected to be well over $500 billion.  In addition to trying to absorb this cost into a budget that Bush continues to shrink the revenues on, the higher the cost of the drug benefit program, the higher the cost for seniors to participate, thus minimizing their benefit.
• The Bush Administration wanted to open areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee to oil drilling and exploration despite the fact that most experts agreed the amount of oil there was relatively small and would have little impact on our dependence on foreign oil.
• Under the Bush Administration, the EPA has weakened the Clean Air Act, reducing restrictions on factories, which allows them to pollute more.  
• The Bush Administration is selling oil and gas leases on lands in Utah that had been granted federal protections under the Clinton Administration as being environmentally sensitive.  Most of the leases are going to companies who have contributed heavily to the Bush and Republican campaigns.      
• Ken Lay, Former Enron CEO, indicted on several charges relating to the collapse of Enron, helped the Bush Administration screen candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and served on an Energy Task Force with Vice-President Cheney to help set the energy policy for the Bush Administration.
• The president and Republican Congress plan on letting the 10-year-old ban on assault weapons to lapse. 
• The Bush Administration wants to eliminate federal funding to the COPS program, which covers 88,000 police officers. 
• Under funding No Child Left Behind has increased budget problems for schools all around the country as schools struggle to implement and meet the new mandates without the funding to do so when they are already facing budget shortfalls.
  

Below are links to news stories on some of the major issues from web sites such as CBS News, the Washington Post and others.  I have provided a brief summary and the link so you can read the story for yourself if you like.  

General Articles 

Secrets and Lies Becoming Commonplace by Walter Cronkite:
Former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite believes the Bush administration is the most secretive since Nixon and points out many instances in which the administration either lied or withheld information.  Among the instances mentioned are the initial refusal to let the national security advisor appear before the 9/11 commission under oath, Richard Foster and the Medicare bill, watering down of EPA warnings regarding air quality at ground zero, and the forced retirement of a US Park police chief for telling a congressman and a newspaper that budget cuts would impair the department's ability to perform its duties.  http://truthout.org/docs_04/040704F.shtml  

Military Records Counter a Kerry Critic
Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5751284/

Bush's 2000 War Promises
This CBS Evening News story took a look at George Bush's 2000 election campaign promises with regards to war to see if he followed through with his promises or not.  Looks like he didn't: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/01/eveningnews/main640262.shtml

Environmental Issues

EPA Easing Clean Air Rules: 
The Environmental Protection Agency relaxed rules contained in the Clean Air Act to now allow factories to make additions equal to the cost of 20% of its equipment without having to add pollution controls.  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/26/tech/main570182.shtml  

Utah Gas And Oil Leases Stir Criticism.  Washington Post:
The Bush Administration is auctioning off oil and gas leases on environmentally sensitive land, overturning federal protections the Clinton Administration had put on the land in 1999.  The leases were going for as little as $5 per acre for the first year with subsequent fees of $2 per acre each year after that.  The land includes several habitats for spotted owls, golden eagles, and peregrine falcons.   http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17525-2004Feb29?language=printer  

Senate Reject Drilling for Oil in Arctic
Senate rejected Republican efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee to oil drilling.  Republicans called it a central part of Bush's energy policy.  Opponents of the measure say the small amount of oil that is there would barely make a dent in our dependence on foreign oil and would cause irreversible damage to the fragile environment there.  http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/18/arctic.refuge/

War on Terror/Iraq

Greg Thielmann, The Man Who Knew:
This February 4, 2004 broadcast on 60 Minutes II  interviewed Greg Thielmann, retired Department of State official whose last job was acting director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs.  He retired a few months prior to Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations outlining the threat to the world posed by Saddam Hussien.  Thielmann states during the interview that Iraq wasn't a threat to its neighbors at the time we went to war and that much of the evidence cited by the Bush administration as reason to go to war was misrepresented to the public.  He claims it was well known in intelligence circles that Iraq did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program.  This is a must read article.  
 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml

Clarke’s Take on Terror:
In this 60 Minutes interview, former top antiterrorism expert Richard Clarke who served under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and finally George W. Bush, maintains the Bush Administration did not take the threat of terrorism seriously prior to 9/11 and the day after 9/11 began looking for ways to go after Iraq.  
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

CIA Chief: No Imminent Threat:
CIA Chief George Tenet says in a speech that intelligence analysts did not deem Iraq to be an imminent threat prior to the US invasion.   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/24/iraq/main601876.shtml

Haliburton:
Haliburton expects to make millions of dollars as a primary and secondary contractor in the reconstruction of Iraq.  Most of the companies being asked to bid on Iraq jobs are major contributors to the Republican Party.   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/07/60minutes/main548117.shtml

Haliburton Faces Heat at Testy Hearing
This article from Reuters covers hearings on Capital Hill in which former Haliburton employees accused the company of squandering millions of dollars while working on government contracts in Iraq.  http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle

The Secret File of Abu Ghraib:
It has been several months since the torture of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib was discovered.  The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and offers this report on their contents.  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6388256

Top GOP Lawmaker: War 'A Mistake'
Republican Representative Doug Bereuter of Nebraska, a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee wrote a letter to constituents that he now believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess."  He wrote, "I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/18/politics/main636799.shtml

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5750615/

Economy

9 Million Lost Healthcare Coverage Since 2001
The number of Americans without health insurance has gone up by 9 million people and the number would be a lot higher if it weren't for Medicaid and other public programs. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/Insureyourhealth/P91042.asp

Medicare

Medicare/Prescription Drugs:
This 60 Minutes spot detailed how Americans are paying millions more for the same drugs as persons from other countries for the same drug from the same company.  The article also explains how the drug companies get a huge benefit from the new Medicare bill pushed through by President Bush and that Bush has received large campaign contributions from the drug companies. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/12/60minutes/main605700.shtml

Medicare Seen Insolvent By 2019:
The Medicare system will be insolvent by 2019 due to the high costs of the new prescription drug benefit included in the new Medicare bill.  Republicans and President Bush have pushed for a program that gives private insurers a larger role in the program to help control costs, while in fact, the government's own projections show that private managed care plans will cost taxpayers much more than traditional Medicare.  Some feel Republicans are trying to create a sense of crisis in order to reduce governments role in the program. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/23/politics/main608201.shtml

Kerry Back Too Soon: Notes on Richard Foster
When John Kerry went on vacation, the Bush administration had a bad week.  Among the highlights: The Commerce Department was about to appoint Nebraska business man Anthony Raimondo to assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing before he dropped his name out of consideration when it was discovered he had just opened a factory in China and was laying off workers in the United States.  It was also learned that Medicare system actuary Richard Foster would be fired by his boss if the true costs of the prescription drug benefit the White House pushed through Congress was released.  If Congress had known the actual costs were $150 billion more than reported, the bill probably would not have passed.   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/25/politics/main608676.shtml

Enron

Cheney: We Met with Enron Execs
After pressure from Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney finally acknowledged that he and his energy task force met with former Enron CEO Ken Lay and other Enron executives for assistance as part of the Bush Administration's Energy Task Force.  Lay also helped the Bush Administration screen candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  Bush's most prominent economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, and his point man on trade issues, Robert Zoellick, have both served as Enron advisers.  http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/....