More Bush lies after 9-11

[RainDog]

Just a reminder of Bush's actions in the months following 9-11. Bush not only used the 9-11 attacks to manipulate us into an attack on Iraq, he used them to attack middle and working class Americans in a cynical burst of "Bush Doctrine" class warfare.

From Dissent Magazine, Fall 2002

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/archives/2002/fa02/lafer.htm

by Gordon Lafer

"Social Security... one day after the terrorist attacks, (Bush) took forty billion dollars from Social Security, declaring it necessary for the war on terrorism.

There is a hundred billion dollars for corporate tax giveaways, including twenty-five billion dollars in retroactive tax cuts, given with no strings attached at all. The companies could use all the money for executive bonuses, and that would be just fine...But there isn't seventeen billion dollars to extend unemployment insurance to cover part-timers and provide increased benefits for those laid off after September 11.

There is fifteen billion dollars to bail out airline investors, but not a penny for workers. American Airlines received eight hundred million dollars from the federal government, and then laid off twenty thousand employees, declaring that it would pay no severance to those who lost their jobs. This is not only legal, it's encouraged by the Bush bailout law. Airlines have to apply to the government to get their part of the fifteen billion, and one of
the official criteria for approving applications is that the airlines are supposed to force concessions from their employees.

One of the more extreme corporate giveaways involves Cipro, the most popular drug used to treat anthrax. Cipro is produced by the Bayer company, and at market rate a month's supply of Cipro costs $350. By comparison, generic producers manufacture a chemically identical drug that costs just $10 a month-1/35th the brand name price. In Canada, the government suspended
Cipro's patent, so that the country could meet the emergency need for large quantities of the drug at affordable prices. But the Bush administration refused to break the patent for Cipro-pleasing the big pharmaceutical companies that were among the biggest donors to the Bush campaign. Based on
the number of pills the government determined were needed to combat an anthrax attack, the difference between paying market rate and using generic drugs amounts to a total of eight billion dollars.

There is also eight billion dollars for insurance industry subsidies. After September 11, the insurance industry asked the government to guarantee that taxpayers would foot the bill for any future payouts on anti-terrorism insurance policies. Democrats agreed and said that the public would cover 80 percent of the insurance companies' costs-but only after the first ten
billion dollars was paid out. This wasn't enough for the Bush
administration, which supported the insurance executives' request that the public foot the bill right from the first dollar. The difference between these two proposals is eight billion dollars.

By contrast, either the eight billion dollars for Cipro or the eight billion dollars for the insurance companies would be enough to pay a full year of family medical premiums for all one million Americans who were laid off in 2001. But according to the administration, the country cannot pay continuing health insurance for laid-off workers. In fact, Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill complained that to do so would create a "new entitlement class," and House Majority Leader Dick Armey stated that helping these workers is "not commensurate with the American spirit."

...much, much more...read it, copy it, hand it out while you register voters in your district...

[FloridaPat]

1. Don't forget the White House was taking Cipro 3 weeks before

the first anthrax attack letter. That was never made a big issue.

[RainDog]

2. They had Cipro, but by refusing to use his clout

Since Bush refused to use his clout to break the patent on Cipro, as Canada did, while the Bushies were taking Cipro, they were also putting the rest of America at risk, if the Anthrax attacks were more than a right wing attack to push through the Patriot Act.

As the article notes generic cipro makers could get the antibiotic to Americans 17 MONTHS EARLIER than Bayer could...

So not only did a refusal to break the patent cost 8 billion dollars more, it took 17 months longer to produce enough for the American people.

In other words, Bayer's profits were more important to Bush than Americans' access to cipro.

I suppose this would have made Americans an "entitlement" class, since we thought we were entitled to public health and safety measures when it appeared that (domestic) terrorists had launched a bio attack on American citizens.