Jerry Miskulin – 8/2/06

This page was last updated on August 2, 2006.

Bush’s only policies are bad; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; August 2, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“On one of my albums, there’s a line to a song that goes, ‘If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.’

“We can therefore switch that line around considering President Bush’s policies, and say if it wasn’t for bad policy, he’d have no policy at all.

“First of all, he’s had very few initiatives. Tax cuts occupy most of his thoughts. It seems he doesn’t see the relationship between the trade and budget deficits. His myopia threatens all of us except for maybe the very rich, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t see.”

[RWC] Actually, I don’t “see the relationship between the trade and budget deficits” either. You’ll note Mr. Miskulin didn’t bother to describe that perceived relationship.

Why does Mr. Miskulin oppose tax cuts? The Tax Foundation reports, “Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the ‘rich,’ these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.” Isn’t this what Mr. Miskulin wants?

“The No Child Left Behind Act was a bold step for President Bush, but he never adequately funded it, so it withered on the vine.”

[RWC] Nice try, but federal funding for K-12 education has increased every year during the Bush administration for a total increase of 41%. Mr. Miskulin is upset President Bush didn’t give teacher labor union management a blank check. As a conservative, I believe the feds should stop funding education completely because it’s not a responsibility of the federal government.

“The Medicare prescription drug plan benefits the drug companies, and it will be repealed when fiscal sanity returns to the White House and Congress.”

[RWC] A liberal talking point. Liberals pushed for a prescription drug plan for years. They are po’d about it only because it was put into place by a Republican president and a Republican-majority Congress. As a conservative, I oppose the plan because I believe government has no business in providing healthcare. Remember, the same people who squawk about the price of the Medicare prescription drug plan are the same people who are pushing for a nationalized healthcare system that would include a prescription drug plan.

Note the inconsistency. Mr. Miskulin wants us to believe he supports “fiscal sanity,” yet in the previous paragraph he complained the government wasn’t spending enough!

“In regard to Iraq, under sanctions it was not a threat. Now, the whole world is watching our boy, President Bush. What you see now are Syria and Iran as the major players in the Middle East, and not Iraq.”

[RWC] Uh, yeah. Iran and Syria were choirboys prior to President Bush’s election.

Under sanctions Iraq was not a threat? Not according to one of Mr. Miskulin’s teammates. On February 24, 2003, Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) said, “I mean, we have three different countries [Iran, Iraq, North Korea] that, while they all present serious problems for the United States – they’re dictatorships, they’re involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country. … And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.”¹ President Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, but John Edwards did.

“Finally, Bush’s main fault is a belief in the power of emotion over intelligence. A stable emotional life should serve as a stepping stone to Solomon’s wisdom, but he sees emotion as its own end so we, not he, have to bend.”

[RWC] Huh?

1. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer; CNN.com; February 24, 2003.