Many people in this country are unhappy now. They are unhappy about the war in Iraq and about the way things are being run here in general and about how their income has decreased. I heard a radio interview of Kurt Vonnegut the famous writer. The interview took place on January 16, 2007. He was asked the same question I have heard asked a hundred times of people and that question is, why did Bush attack Iraq? I believe his answer was the most amazing one I have heard yet. He stated that Bush and company knew there were no weapons of mass destruction there and if there were, they wouldn't have risked an attack. He went on to say that he felt the administration was just plain stupid and had regarded the people there as an easy mark and this was just a way to get our message across that terrorists can't attack this country and get away with it. He went on to say that he believes that Bush, Chaney, and Rumsfeld really didn't know anything about the area and intimated that they were just plain dumb.

I can't say if Vonnegut is right or wrong since I only have my feelings to go on, but I do know that the president has said some very strange things. In a 2001 Washington speech he said "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." Now I never thought of myself as being stupid, but maybe I am wrong because I have no idea what the president was talking about here and further more, it seems to make no sense what so ever. But bad as that was, what about this? On September 13, 2001 he stated "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." Six months later the president said "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." You have to admit that one has to wonder if the president even knows what he is reading from. As crazy as this all is, I think that one of the dumbest statements that was made by the president was made in 2003 when he said "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq the United States and our allies have prevailed." But what can you expect from a man who also said in 2002 that "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

Gee maybe as unbelievable as it sounds, all those people who think that Bush was just out to help his cronies make money in Iraq were wrong, maybe he just didn't understand what was going on. Well Kurt, I really don't think that you were right on this one. Too many companies and too many people became rich over Iraq. But there were an awful lot of dumb things that this country did. An example is U.S. military surplus sales to the area and to Iran and China. What made this dumb was the fact that we supposedly have a embargo on this kind of stuff going to these countries. The U.S. has been worried for years that Iran would get parts for their F14 Tomcat fighters that they acquired under the shah. I can't understand this because these planes are becoming ancient. Maybe we are afraid that they will use these planes against our arab allies in the area. Be that as it may, at least six times weapons were sold by us as surplus indirectly to these countries by our government and this happens to be against the law.

Did you ever wonder what happened to the promise of using Iraq's oil money to finance the war? I know that I did. The United Nations approved the financial takeover of the Iraqi government's bank accounts and oil sales by the U.S. An American official in Iraq claims that the U.S. didn't properly safeguard the money. When U.N. auditors went to Iraq to "inspect the books' as it were, they found missing records and a double set of books at the Finance Ministry and they didn't match. Surprise, surprise! When a U.S. official promised to hire a certified public accounting firm to keep track of Iraqi funds people felt that things would get better. It wasn't to be, because a tiny consulting firm was hired instead and was so small that the firm was headquartered in a private home according to NBC news. While no one will ever know the extent of the missing funds, it has to be billions upon billions of dollars. It has been estimated that over 8 billion dollars disappeared from Iraq in one eight month period.

So what has the president's accomplishments been since he has been in office. It was very hard for me to find any, but I did find one thing, in 2004 the number of millionaires in this country rose 21%. Can you imagine that, TWENTY ONE PERCENT? Their numbers rose to over 7.5 million millionaires. This is at the same time that the middle class was finding it hard to find decent jobs. In the same year the number of billionaires also grew. They U.S. went from 262 billionaires to 313. Congratulations Mr. President a job well done. They all deserved the huge tax breaks you gave them, after all, the middle and lower class couldn't appreciate having extra money, they would only waste it on food, medicine and such. In the same period poverty increased according to the U.S. Census Bureau from 12.1% to 12.5%. This is about 1.4 million more people in poverty There is talk of the median income going up in some years, but don't let this fool you since millionaires and billionaires are figured into this. There is not much here to be proud of if you are the president. One other thing that I didn't mention is that many nations are no longer selling and buying oil with dollars. This is one of the reasons our currency is falling in value. If any country with a lot of dollars dumps them on the market we are in deep do do.

When President Bush finally leaves office, this country is going to be so deep in deficit spending that we may never get out of the hole. George Bush may go down in history as the deficit president. Just because the federal government can print money doesn't mean that they don't have to worry about their bills. So far the national debt has climbed to over 8.6 Trillion Dollars. The federal budget website reports that in 2006 the federal government spent 406 BILLION DOLLARS in interest payments alone. The Euro is fast replacing the dollar as the world's currency. So what does eight trillion dollars look like? It looks like this, $8,000,000,000,000. Social Security is supposed to be a separate pool of money and on paper there is more coming in than going out, yet there is nothing in the pool because other government agencies spend it.

The average person has not done very well since President Bush has been in office. It is said that when the jobless are counted in the U.S. millions upon millions are skipped and not counted, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times on December 29, 2003,. The article claims that the true amount of jobless was 9.7% at the time and not 5.9% as reported. Howard Dean criticized President Bush for "the worst job creation record in over 60 years". Historically, presidents have tried to have the parameters changed to their benefit when unemployment is totaled. The fact is that the real figures are always higher than the ones shown in official counts.

Let's hope that in the future, the next president will be more understanding of the needs of the common people in this country and move to give them the assistance that they need and are entitled to, instead of giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. and declaring senseless wars on other countries.