Did George W. Bush Care About the Poor and Middle Class?

[guywithashovel]

http://www.fratching.com/showthread.php?t=1552

Someone stated this in the above thread, and since a further discussion on that subject would derail that thread horribly, I thought I would make a separate thread for it.

So, did Bush 43 care about people who didn't fit into the upper echelons of society (economically speaking)?

[Greenday]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha. No. Is this a serious thread?

[Amethyst Hunter]

Two words: New. Orleans.

[Boozy]

Bush didn't care for most people, although I'll grant that he probably cared the least for blacks. They don't hold much of the country's wealth and they didn't vote for him (as a general rule).

[BlaqueKatt]

Two words: New. Orleans.

um you do realize that FEMA is not supposed to be the primary resource for disasters right? They are supposed to lend support to what's already there and in place by the time they arrive.

the mayor didn't have a plan, neither did the governor-so they had to rely on FEMA which can take 48 hours to mobilize.

Contrast that with WI loss of Lake Delton-not as large of a scale by any means-but the local government dealt with it because they already had plans in place.

Chertoff said FEMA is not equipped to send large numbers of people to help during a disaster.

from an article about new orleans

Instead, he said, "FEMA basically plugs in to the existing state and local infrastructure. What happened here was, essentially, the demolishment of that state and local infrastructure and, I think, that really caused a cascading series of breakdowns."

The lessons from Katrina may result in a change in the way FEMA responds to such emergencies, moving from playing a supportive role to playing a more central role, he said.

[Fashion Lad!]

Bush cared about the poor and middle class...

Unless you consider Africa a rich continent with filled with white people. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...123000941.html

Or if you consider trying to help first-time home buyers and people about ready to default on their home loans rich. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...help-poor.html

Bush didn't go around parading what he did good because he wasn't that type of person. Obama has a news conference or an address if he helps an old lady cross the street. Maybe it's not just him, I'll admit that Obama is very charismatic.

BlaqueKatt is right about FEMA.

Bush did propose many things to help poor and middle class with health insurance, retirement and overall savings. But the media distorted that saying he wanted to privatize social security and all that fun stuff.

Medicaid is one of Bush's programs to help seniors with their prescription drug coverage. (Although that's a failure, it's giving out more money than taking in.)

[daleduke17]

Two words: New. Orleans.

New Orleans residents also fucked New Orleans residents over. They did almost NOTHING to prepare. Didn't listen to the reports. Didn't evacuate when told to. Didn't evacuate afterward, either. Didn't even try to help themselves afterward. Just sat and complained that no one was helping them.

You're town is 8 feet below sea level.
The expected flood levels are 20-30 feet.
You should expect that you're going to be almost 40 feet under water.

GET THE FUCK OUT.

So, a lot of New Orleans problems were the residents themselves not doing much to prepare.

Is Bush completely innocent? No. He (and his FEMA heads) fucked up as well.

[joe hx]

If rich people were to vote Bush (and by proxy Republican), and more votes mean election, wouldn't Bush (and Republicans) want to create more rich people?

[BroomJockey]

wouldn't Bush (and Republicans) want to create more rich people?

You'd think that. But remember, wealth is finite. It's a zero-sum gain. Your gain is my loss. So, the rich contribute to those who will help them hold their wealth, and get more. Republicans have other tactics to appeal to middle-class/poor people, such as saying that the others will take away what the people already have.

[Boozy]

But remember, wealth is finite. It's a zero-sum gain.

How do you figure that? Wealth is not finite. The economy contracts and grows all the time. We are many, many time richer than we were fifty years ago.

[protege]

New Orleans residents also fucked New Orleans residents over. They did almost NOTHING to prepare. Didn't listen to the reports. Didn't evacuate when told to. Didn't evacuate afterward, either. Didn't even try to help themselves afterward. Just sat and complained that no one was helping them.

Let's not forget about the idiots who chose to *shoot* at helicopters

Still, quite a bit of the blame has to go on the residents and their elected officials. From what I understand, it was well-known that the levee system wasn't in the best of shape. Yet, nobody did a thing to remedy it--it was only a matter of time before a storm strong enough would inundate the city.

Locally, we've had quite a few bad floods here in Pittsburgh. With 3 rivers, plus the hilly terrain, we're used to it. In fact, the worst flood ever, was back in 1946 IIRC. The entire downtown area was under several feet of water. About that time, major efforts were taken to control the rivers.

Sure, we still get flooding, but it's nowhere near as it once was. Even so, our local agencies are prepared for it. In other words, we don't sit on our asses and wait for FEMA to do something.

[BroomJockey]

How do you figure that? Wealth is not finite.

There is a limited amount of resources. The Earth (when you include the sun) is basically a closed system. The sun produces a set amount of energy that the Earth absorbs, and that can only be stored more efficiently, not increased. When we run out of pre-stored energy (fossil fuels), it will also become a scarce commodity. Everything else on Earth is finite. Gold, silver, everything used as a measure of wealth. Hell, even Helium for balloons is a finite resource. The only thing you can do is become more efficient at using the resources, so that it takes less to achieve certain things.

So, we've dealt with the physical trappings, now the claim of the economy expanding and contracting. The government prints a specific amount of money each year, and uses interest to remove money from the economy when needed. If wealth wasn't finite, then they wouldn't need to do that. And the only way to create new wealth is either to uncover a resource to exploit, thus gaining you something, though it needs to be something other people would be willing to trade you their wealth for, or you need to use your labour to create something people would be willing to trade you for. The only reasons we're "richer" now is because we're a) exploiting more resources, and b) doing it more efficiently. Basically, the resources are like a bank. We're simply making withdrawals, and once the account's empty, we're stuck with what we've got. Just because we only look at one side of the equation doesn't change the equation. You exploit a resource before I do, I can't use it any more, so I lose out on your gain.

[Fashion Lad!]

For your (dis)pleasure: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/03...george-bu.html

Video courtesy of YouTube of the scene in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDMyArnIdzY

So let me get this straight: To prove to me that Bush did not care about black people, you linked an article discussing how Kanye said that Bush didn't care about black people and a video of him saying that? What on earth were you trying to prove? Seriously. I know what Kanye said and I wasn't debating that. I was questioning the validity of the statement. Way to go.

[bunnyboy]

Eh truthfully I think he didn't care about the poor or middle class...I also think he didn't care about much of anyone, like almost every president, he gets the blame for most of his advisors/cabinet/congress. That's where we really should look, it's basically become if you're not a lobby or insanely rich well don't expect the government to do ANYTHING, well unless enough press coverage happens or there's a large enough lobby....
reminds me of a joke I heard, what's the difference between a lobby and a bribe? two zeros.

[Amethyst Hunter]

So let me get this straight: To prove to me that Bush did not care about black people, you linked an article discussing how Kanye said that Bush didn't care about black people and a video of him saying that? What on earth were you trying to prove? Seriously. I know what Kanye said and I wasn't debating that. I was questioning the validity of the statement. Way to go.

Ok, hold the phone. Evidently our signals got crossed, because I was inferring from your previous statement that you -hadn't- seen the Kanye video wherein he made reference to Bush. NOT that the video itself was the proof.

Now, as to the original posting, how about:

- New Orleans. I will maintain this to my dying day. Yes, there were all sorts of borked-upness going on. No, it doesn't give the government then a pass on their own fuckups. The fact is the city was going to hell in the proverbial handbasket and the officials who were supposed to deal with it fucked it up in just about every way possible, and many people suffered and died because of this. FEMA was a joke then (don't know about it now, but I'm not inclined to favor 'em).

(And to anybody who thinks that "oh they deserved it for living in a dangerous area" - how about YOU move from your cozy little home in the earthquake/tidal wave/tornado/snow/etc. zone? Because hey, if anything happens, you should've known better than to live in a dangerous area! Nevermind, of course, that you might have family/friends nearby, a good job you like, a good cultural site, history, etc.)

- The *very* first thing Bush did when he swiped the Presidency was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, which prevents healthcare organizations overseas from so much as saying the word "abortion" to their patients; if they did, they'd lose their funding. Since the vast majority of people that these organizations serve are close to or below the poverty line, reproductive choice access is paramount, and a lot of these agencies need the funding they get in order to do their job. Unsafe abortion - defined as performed by anybody unqualified to practice medicine - kills and injures far more women than does legal, safe abortion done in sanitary conditions (i.e., doctor's office), and women who are desperate WILL resort to these means if they can't go the legal safe route.

(And no, birth control wasn't safe either - you have the rightwing nuts clamoring to restrict or take that away too, or you have women stuck in countries where damn near every female living in one is raped on a regular basis and therefore they CANNOT control their own bodies.) How one feels about abortion in particular is irrelevant - it's not YOUR situation to deal with; what matters is that EVERYONE has access to and the correct information about any option they might be considering.

- The joke that was abstinence-only "education." It's a fact, teen pregnancy overwhelmingly breeds poverty and while everyone's mileage is going to be different, nobody I know thinks that kids having kids is a good thing. Certainly, nobody likes the thought of teens having sex, and with good reason. However, the fact remains that some are going to do it, so the least we can do is give them the necessary *correct* information and access to resources to prevent worse things from happening (STDs, unwanted pregnancies).

Empowering teens with the knowledge they'll need makes it more likely that they'll make better decisions regarding something as important as sex. Instead, what Bush did was help push ideological bullshit and therefore perpetuate the bad cycle; teen pregnancies, which had been going down during the Clinton years, were noted to be UP in the year 2006, roughly a little over the middle of Bush's office time and the height of "abstinence-only." (And what can we use those extra "results" for? The words "cannon fodder" come to mind...!)

- Speaking of the military, our servicepeople aren't getting the help that they need (and deserve). We have veterans either committing suicide or coming back with serious mental (if not physical) problems in record numbers, and at the height of Iraq we had personnel having to buy their own body armor. Since a lot of our servicepeople come from backgrounds that arguably aren't what we'd consider "well-off" financially, I have to wonder why such a pro-war president didn't seem all that eager to put his money where his mouth was; all he seemed to like doing was putting on a uniform and prancing around braying about -his-"accomplishment." Supporting the troops has to mean more than slapping a stupid yellow ribbon on your vehicle; it should mean that we help them before, during and after they do service.

So yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that Bush II gave zero shits about people who were poor, or even just people in general. (Unless, of course, it was an election year and then it was time to spread around a bunch of steaming horsepiles about how wonderful life would be with him at the helm.)