Kerry fears Katrina-like lack of preparation for global competition

[sabra]

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050926/APN/509260911&cachetime=3&template=dateline

Kerry fears Katrina-like lack of preparation for global competition

Hurricane Katrina exposed the nation's lack of preparation for a natural disaster, Sen. John Kerry said Monday, and the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee is worried the United States is similarly unprepared for global competition with the likes of India or China.

Kerry told a Boston Chamber of Commerce luncheon the country needs to invest more in so-called building blocks such as education while eliminating roadblocks such as soaring health care costs.

"Why are we doing things that don't make sense?" the Massachusetts senator asked. "Politics? Ideology? Favoritism? Special interests?"

Kerry said Katrina laid bare "a pattern of willful negligence" by the Bush administration and its aftermath laid bare "the philosopher's stone, the alpha and omega of American Republican politics, the answer to every question: never stop cutting taxes on the wealthiest individuals and the most powerful corporations, come hell or high water, in war or peace, in debt as well as surplus."

[cornermouse]

1. What global competition?

The only global competition I see is the race to send them our jobs and our technology... The same technology that we used to guard from industrial spies not that long ago.

[Voltaire99]

2. Alas, Kerry himself favors outsourcing and corporate tax cuts.

The party needs an economic populist, not this corporate henchman.