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Opinion

Republicans: learn, don't blame

David Salinas
Opinion Columnist 

In most political campaigns the incumbent running for re-election will tell their constituents how much they have accomplished in their years in office and how much they hope to do in the future. But what happens when you have done nothing positive? 

The Bush administration answered this question last week when they chose to distort a flubbed joke by Sen. John Kerry and turn it into a headline story in hopes of diverting attention from their miserable foreign policy failure in Iraq. Because President Bush and the Republican-led Congress have done nothing of note in the past two years, they have chosen the "fear and smear" tactic heading into tomorrow's election. 

From terrorism to taxes, they hope to scare people into voting Republican. On all these fronts, however, they have lied. Not "fudged," not misled, but lied. America needs change. 

"Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush." 

Those were the words from Senator Kerry's prepared text at last Monday's campaign event in California. The joke preceding this was about George Bush coming from Texas, but living "in a state of denial." The text and context were clear, but the White House chose to attack Kerry by questioning his support of the military. 

John Kerry is a decorated Vietnam veteran who saved other soldiers' lives. Kerry was talking about this President's incompetence in Iraq. If anyone needs to apologize for their treatment of soldiers in Iraq it is this White House. 

"What's your plan?" President Bush has been asking this question in Republican districts across this country, implying that Democrats have no solution for the mistakes this administration has made in Iraq. Mistakes like putting too few troops in Iraq from the beginning because of Donald Rumsfeld's overreach on "streamlining" the military. Mistakes like not immediately guarding the borders after the invasion to prevent an insurgency. Mistakes like sending soldiers to Iraq without the proper armor. Mistakes like privatizing the war by giving private contracts, paid by American taxpayers, to companies like Halliburton, Parsons and Blackwater, who are not accountable for any mistakes they make. 

Do we support the troops when we allow private contract workers to get paid five times more than them for doing the same work? But you want a plan for the mistakes you have made? Here it is.

Iraq is on the verge of a civil war. We need to give Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds an incentive to work towards a peaceful progress in Iraq, but this can only be done by decentralizing the country. Each of these three groups would get control of their section of Iraq and the central government would be left in charge of border security and controlling the distribution of oil revenue. 

Baghdad would remain a federal city, belonging to no group exclusively. At the same time this is occurring there would be a phased redeployment of American soldiers to an over-the-horizon role. It is time for Iraqis to control their own country. Oh, and listen to your own military and fire Donald Rumsfeld. 

This is a plan that was created by Democrats like Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. But maybe the President doesn't understand it because it's not ambiguous, frivolous sloganeering. It's not a slogan like, "Democrats will raise your taxes."

Democrats will not raise taxes. Democrats have endorsed payroll tax cuts, sales tax cuts and proposed raising the minimum wage and making college tuition tax deductible. 

But let's be clear about the Bush tax cut. It's not really a tax cut, it is a tax deferment. A deferment that will be paid off in the future by people still in college or high school. The majority of the cuts that have been made in the past six years are towards taxes on capital gains, dividends and the estate tax. 

The estate tax affects .5% of the population, yet to cut it would cost one trillion dollars. This is money that is either borrowed from countries like China or paid for by cutting programs that affect people in the middle class. This is a Robin-Hood-in-reverse economic policy that is another sham supported by this President and his enablers in Congress. America needs change.

President Bush has had six years of one-party government, yet still has to rely on personal smear tactics in the final days of this campaign. He has to rely on Karl Rove's micro-targeting and getting out the base because he has never cared to unite the country with policies of inclusion and hope. 

This President does not compromise and needs adherence in Congress; because of this he has made the election a national referendum on his record in office. If Americans realize this we will have change, and maybe end the politics of personal destruction.

Send comments to dccampus@mail.uh.edu