Tag Archives: federal deficit

Kill Your TV

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To the Editor:
   As much as the Republican Party likes to be in control of government, it can’t be said that  they ever govern well.  The Bush Administration will be noted in history as having been massively incompetent.  Its eight years of dismal governmental diligence resulted in 911, the Enron fiasco, two long and expensive wars, the financial collapse of 2007, and a massive federal deficit
    Ronald Reagan came across as everyone’s, feel-good-about-America uncle, but his eight years were marked by indictments of Cabinet officials, the Silverado Savings and Loan scandal, defense budget boondoggles, and an unprecedented, non-wartime, federal deficit.  His military forays were invasions of Grenada and Panama, but when the going got rough in Beirut, he immediately bailed out.
    And before Bush and Reagan, there was Richard NIxon.  Enough said about Republican governance.
    What the Republican Party does do extremely well, probably from its long association with business, is market itself.  And advertising does work on the American public.  Companies spend millions on market research, focus groups, and carefully crafted ads to keep their products on constant display in people’s minds.  With the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision promoting unlimited campaign spending, we can be certain that in the next five months we will be inundated with a virtual monsoon of political advertising, most of which will be either inflammatory, misleading, or downright prevarication. The best political decision Americans can make right now is to simply unplug the television, find a good book or two, read up on media consolidation (that’s where the money is going), and talk to friends and neighbors.  It’s time to return to reality.
RP

Economic Interests

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To the Editor:
    Research and development for the Gerald R. Ford, the first of the Navy’s next generation aircraft carriers, is projected to be 5 billion dollars.  Construction is estimated at 9 billion, with commissioning set for 2015.  A second ship is scheduled for 2019 and a total of ten by 2058.  Skipping past the sheer impact on our federal deficit and and our assumption of the role of international cop, these new carriers are, primarily, attack weapons of war, capable of both missle and air strikes.  An argument against carriers is that fully outfitted and armed each would constitute upward from 20 billion dollars worth of floating investment and equipment, a most tempting target.  Also somewhat discomfitting is that the Navy is reestablishing its 4th Fleet, headed by just such an aircraft carrier, for operations in the Caribbean “to support counter-terrorism efforts and to protect our national interests” in Central and South America, regions in which our “economic interests” have frequently run counter to sovereign governments.  Given our penchant lately for attacking prickly, independent rulers of oil-rich nations, one may question if perhaps Hugo Chavez and the oil fields of Venezuela might be next in our “counter-terrorism” sights.
RP