Harold L. Householder – 10/21/04

This page was last updated on October 21, 2004.

See through the deceit; Harold L. Householder; Beaver County Times; October 21, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I cannot understand how this presidential election can be close. President Bush has nothing to run on except ‘keeping America safe.’”

[RWC] I too cannot understand why the election appears to be close. President Bush has a good overall record and John Kerry runs away from his own history and record.

“If you learn about the 9/11 Commission report, you discover that the information given to Bush not only showed we would be attacked, but it also gave aircraft as the most likely means.”

[RWC] Mr. Householder would like us to believe the Bush administration didn’t take terrorism seriously, but the 9/11 Commission reports and testimony show that to be false.

Mr. Householder must have a different version of the 9/11 Commission reports that the rest of us. The information to which Mr. Householder refers covered a period of 3½ years, three of which were during the Clinton administration. The report was not new and provided no actionable information. Even so, the report stated, “The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.” It sounds to me like a lot of agents were pursuing leads, though obviously they didn’t bear enough fruit to stop the attack.

“Next, he took us into a costly war in Iraq that had nothing to do with Sept. 11, 2001, and we found out he had been planning it since he took office.

[RWC] President Bush never claimed Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, but folks like Mr. Householder like to claim the opposite.

When he wrote, “we found out he [President Bush] had been planning it [the Iraq War] since he took office,” Mr. Householder was deceived or he is trying to deceive us. Bush critics like Mr. Householder hang their hat on a statement Paul O’Neill made during a CBS 60 Minutes interview saying President Bush had contingency plans for Iraq early in his administration. In a subsequent NBC interview, O’Neill said, “People are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq. I’m amazed that anyone would think that our government, on a continuing basis across political administrations, doesn’t do contingency planning and look at circumstances.”

“On the economy, he took a record budget surplus and turned it into record deficits.”

[RWC] Wrong again. The budget surplus had already declined in Bill Clinton’s last budget. Therefore, there is no way President Bush could have inherited a “record” budget surplus. The primary reasons for the deficits are the recession that started toward the end of the Clinton administration, 9/11 and its aftereffects, and the insecurity caused by the uncovering of accounting scandals that flourished during the Clinton administration.

“This will take benefits from people like me nearing retirement and at the same time increase the tax burden on young people to pay more for even these reduced benefits.”

[RWC] Perhaps Mr. Householder can explain this to us. FYI, the entire history of Socialist Security has been about taking from the young to pay the retired. That’s why I refer to Socialist Security as a Ponzi scheme.

“Had the Democrats done this, it would be all this election would be about.”

[RWC] Actually, Democrats did this a lot. Over the years, the Democrat-controlled Congress increased Socialist Security and Medicare benefits for the retired by increasing the Socialist Security and Medicare taxes on the young. Check the record.

“The Medicare drug bill the Republicans pushed through with the help of drug company lobbyists and 80 percent of drug company campaign money going to Republicans was supposed to cost $395 billion.”

[RWC] Let me get this straight. Democrats promised a Medicare drug benefit for decades, but when Republicans actually did something about it, Republicans are pilloried because the benefit is not perfect in Democrat eyes? Isn’t this just a tad transparent?

“Bush hid the real cost of $530 billion. This bill does more for drug companies, insurance companies and HMOs than for the elderly.”

[RWC] Nice myth, but the non-partisan (according to John Kerry) Congressional Budget Office agreed with the original estimate. Perhaps Mr. Householder can provide the details to support his belief that “This bill does more for drug companies, insurance companies and HMOs than for the elderly.”

FYI, I oppose any prescription drug benefit for Medicare – as well as Medicare itself – but I really dislike partisan hypocrisy by Democrats attacking something they claimed to want.

“The energy bill that Bush is pushing was conceived in secret meetings held by Dick Cheney.

“The only people invited were from the energy industry.

“The bill contains about $1 billion for renewable and alternative energy but at least $34 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for energy companies that have a combined total of 882 off-shore tax shelters.”

[RWC] So what if the plan was developed in “secret” meetings; the energy bill itself is public knowledge and has been undergoing public debate since 2001.

Regarding “The only people invited were from the energy industry,” whom does Mr. Householder believe should have been invited? Don’t we want energy experts working on an energy bill?

I can’t vouch for Mr. Householder’s “$1 billion for renewable and alternative energy but at least $34 billion in tax breaks…,” but for the sake of argument let’s assume this is accurate. First, I don’t believe government should spend taxpayer dollars on energy research; the private sector will do that when it makes economic sense. The fact that President Bush wants to spend $1 billion in this area should be met with praise from all but the most partisan liberals.

If the bill includes energy industry tax reductions of $34 billion, that makes sense. No matter how much money we throw at alternative energy sources, they are decades away. We need to increase the supply of conventional energy sources for the short term and a sure way to do that is to remove unnecessary economic constraints from the energy industry.

“This is just scratching the surface of the deceit of this administration. It’s time to see through them and make changes on Nov. 2.”

[RWC] We may be “just scratching the surface of the deceit,” but it’s the deceit of the anti-Bush crowd.