Paul Begala is one seriously angry Democrat...
Written: Sep 21 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Packed full of facts, interesting reading
Cons: Can get meanspirited at times
The Bottom Line: Everyone should read it, whether they think they will agree with it or not.
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| sampo24's Full Review: Paul Begala - It's Still the Economy, Stupid: Geor... |
This book, in case you haven't yet guessed, is not a policy prescription to cure what ails us. Rather, it's a catalog of what's gone wrong. A compendium of the many mistaken and wrongheaded economic decisions made by the Only President We Have... In other words, somebody's got to yell "Fire!" before anybody will run for the hose. The purpose of this book is to yell "Fire!" - Paul Begala
Yup. He's mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore! In It's Still the Economy Stupid, Paul Begala effectively dismantles the belief that our current president might actually be doing a good job. And he never even had to mention the word Iraq once. (Well, except for the section where he discusses Cheney's contracts with Iraq back in 1998 when he was CEO of Halliburton.) He can do this simply because you really don't need to talk about Iraq to demonstrate what a failure this presidency has been, although it sure helps... All you have to do is look at the state of our country and the economic mess we're in. And Paul Begala describes it well. And in detail... With the facts to back it up.
Begala starts out his book detailing the state of the country back in the 90's under Clinton. Honestly, I've never been one of Clinton's biggest fans. He always had an "oily bohunk" personality (to take a term from Sixteen Candles) that never sat well with me. And he certainly wasn't our strongest president when it came to foreign affairs. At the same time, it's obvious that after 8 years we were doing pretty damn well economically. And the idea that he somehow inherited it all from Reagan never made sense to me. And Clinton's economic plans were violently opposed by the right wing when first implemented in 1993. Unfortunately for them, the death knells that Gingrich and others were sounding that Clinton would drive us further to recession never happened. Our economy ended up stronger than ever. New jobs were created. More people were raised out of poverty. And again, Begala backs all this up with facts.
Now, just three years into the Bush presidency, all of that is gone. Unemployment levels have skyrocketed. Our debts are skyrocketing. Our economy is in a tailspin. Our veterans' benefits are being cut. And the troops that our president supposedly supports have found that their pay raises are being capped and their family separation pay and hazardous duty pay for deployments are being rolled back. They are, however, doubling the death gratuity pay. http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=0-ARMYPAPER-1954515.php
Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?
Meanwhile, Bush's actions show that he is more than willing to be compassionate to the corporations that he gave billions of dollars back to when he attempted to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax. Keep in mind, this was a law that was signed into being by Reagan. The basically ensured that corporations pay a minimum tax, despite deductions. That sounds fair, doesn't it? Apparently not, according to Bush, since he not only wanted to repeal it, but was also going to refund the taxes paid for the last 15 years, adding up to $25.4 billion in the first year. That's a lot of money.
Begala also discusses the Bush administration's blatant attempts to push his agenda. He appointed a commission to study how to improve Social Security. However, rather than bring together a group, who could look at various solutions, instead he made sure that the appointees all agreed with what he had to say. And this comes straight from Ari Fleischer. "The commission that the president will announce will, of course, be comprised of people who share the president's view that personal retirement accounts are the way to save Social Security." One thing I credit the Bush administration for, they're pretty damn obvious with their plans. Why things like this don't upset more people is something I never will understand, however.
Begala also lists the string of lies our president has told us. He talks about how Bush promised not to touch the Social Security Trust Fund, then did it anyway. He talks about how Bush promised to fully fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, then only authorized less than half of what he promised. When the Harkin-Hagel amendment attempted to correct this and increase the funding, the Bush administration called it "costly and unwarranted". He visited a Boys and Girls Club in Wilmington Delaware, touting their program and congratulating all the good they did. And then followed up by cutting $60 million in funding for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
While campaigning in Michigan on September 29, 2000, candidate Bush pledged that he would reduce four different emissions, including carbon dioxide... Despite this campaign pledge, President Bush wrote to Republican senators to tell them he had decided to renege on his promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants after encountering strong resistance from the coal and oil industries.
While campaigning for president in 2000, Bush promised not to open up a radioactive waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In fact, he said, "As president, I would not sign legislation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site unless it's been deemed scientifically safe." Unfortunately, even though Yucca mountain has not been deemed safe, they're going to do it anyway.
Bush lied about being friends with Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron. He claimed that Lay supported Ann Richards in the 1994 Governor's race, when Lay himself said he supported Bush over Richards. In fact, the overwhelming evidence presented in the book showed just how much control Enron had over Bush's energy policy, to the point that Kenneth Lay helped to recommend and interview potential candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Unfortunately, it may be a long time before we know exactly how much Enron and the other energy companies influenced the administration's energy policy because Vice President Cheney refuses to let anyone see the minutes of his meetings, even when required by the courts to do so.
"We were buying political influence. That was it. He was not much of a businessman." - George Soros, who owned one third of Harken Energy, on why Harken bought Bush's failed oil company in 1986
Begala also delves into both Bush and Cheney's checkered pasts dealing with their respective corporations. I could go on about how Bush approved the sale of a Harken subsidiary to Harken itself, how he sold the majority of his Harken stock just before it tanked and "forgot" to file the paperwork on it with the SEC for 34 weeks. I could go on about how he set up a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands in order to keep from paying taxes on his earnings. I could rhapsodize on how Cheney made huge profits during his stint as CEO of Halliburton off of trading with or buddies in the "axis of evil", while he laid off 10,100 workers. I could mention the fact that one of Halliburton's subsidiaries had an office in Tehran. But, I think Begala does the job much better and in much more detail. And he also has the facts to back it up.
Begala does wrap up his book with a few ideas of how the Democratic party can change things. But it's a pretty short section. After all, this book is a wake up call to get us motivated to start looking at what's wrong and start thinking about how to take action. It's not the cure in itself.
I'm not going to say that everything Begala says is perfect. I'm not going to say that Clinton was the best president we ever had and that if Gore had become president we would be running around in a shiny, happy world with no problems whatsoever. Begala certainly has his own agenda with this book and he's certainly biased in his opinions. I especially can't agree with his indictment of those who voted for Nader in 2000 (myself among them) and his belief that they cost Gore the election. In fact, his rant on the "Nader factor" doesn't hold much water and sounds more like the whining of a child who didn't get his favorite toy. In fact, maybe instead of blaming Nader, he should take a long, hard look at the apathy of the 2000 election and that as a result, we ended up with two mediocre candidates who had as much power to inspire the public as a slug. And now that apathy has come back to bite us. But, he also has a boatload of facts on his side that can't be ignored. It can't be ignored that economically, we are in a very bad state and that the policies of the Bush administration have gotten us to this point. Our president is doing a terrible job and things need to change.
Hopefully, this book will serve as a wake-up call to the people. I think that the evidence is becoming too strong to ignore. Attack Begala's book as much as you want, he says a lot of hard things that can't be dismissed. And hopefully people will give it a chance without writing it off automatically as the rantings of another angry liberal. Yes, he's angry. But once you stop to think about it, he has a right to be.
This is the beginning of a series of reviews that I'll be writing on various political books. I thought it would be good to more thoroughly educate myself on various people's views. I'm trying to cover the full spectrum so next up is The Savage Nation by Michael Savage. I'm one-third of the way through it so far and I'm already... speechless. Any recommendations for further reading is always appreciated.
Recommended:
Yes
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