Blog Center: Kurt's Blog - Archived Entry

Unfortunately work and politics have been very demanding for the past week and I haven’t had much time to post anything….and it’s been just an absolutely great week for posting.

Personal thanks to Bush, Cheney and Zell Miller, arguably the angriest and meanest man alive, for all the fine future posting material! When I saw Killer Miller speak, his face and demeanor sure looked familiar http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/04/09/ana04017.html Wow…he really is the persona of evil!!

Despite the plentiful material to discuss, I want to use this post to discuss a report issued by the Census Bureau last week while the GOP and Bush Administration trumpeted its economic success over the past four years.

The report stated that the number of Americans living in poverty jumped to 35.9 million in 2003, up by 1.3 million, while the number of Americans without health care insurance rose to 45 million, up from 43.6 million in 2002. The Census Bureau also reported that the share of aggregate income for the lowest 20 percent of Americans fell to 3.4 percent from 3.5 percent. (Refer to my earlier post about the Fragmenting of America)

Not surprisingly, children and racial minorities are doing worse than the overall population:

-The rate of child poverty rose to 17.6 percent from 16.7 percent in 2002 increasing the number of poor children to 12.9 million.

-The poverty rate of African Americans remains nearly twice the national rate, with 24.4 percent of blacks living below the poverty line in 2003, slightly higher from 24.1 percent a year earlier.

-Households with Hispanics reported a decline in median income of 2.6 percent.

-Women saw a decline in their earnings for the first time since 1995, falling 0.6 percent to $30,724, decreasing the female-to-male earnings ratio to 76 cents on the dollar.

The report also indicated that health care coverage also dropped last year with the number of Americans living without insurance jumped 1.4 million last year.

I am not at all surprised that the Bush speech writers would have ignored this report in preparing Bush’s acceptance speech. But if you were as unfortunate as me to have heard his speech, you understand how utterly despicable I find this President when he smirkily claims progress on the economy and healthcare. Luckily for Bush and his advisors we do have a separation of church and state in the US…..most pious church goers do not take likely to such grievous mistruths!