Bush just gave away everything.....including the kitchen sink!!

Budget deficit?.......what budget deficit?......I need to buy some votes!


Pieces of the speech:

Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes into temporary shelters. Bush said the goal was to get evacuees out of shelters by mid-October and into apartments and other homes, with assistance from the government. He said he would work with Congress to ensure that states were reimbursed for the cost of caring for evacuees. Bush proposed establishment of worker recovery accounts providing up to $5,000 for job training, education and child care during the search for employment. He also said he would ask Congress to approve an Urban Homesteading Act in which surplus federal property would be turned over to low-income citizens by means of a lottery to build homes, with mortgages or assistance from charitable organizations. The federal government will undertake a close partnership with the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, the city of New Orleans, and other Gulf Coast cities, so they can rebuild in a sensible, well planned way. Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely — so we will have a team of inspector generals reviewing all expenditures. Katrina Ushers in Return of Big Government WASHINGTON - The era of big government is back.     President Bush is presiding over what is sure to be the most expensive government relief and reconstruction operation in U.S. history. With estimates of the federal tab ranging up to $200 billion for rebuilding New Orleans and other storm-ravaged Gulf Coast cities, Bush and his Republican allies in Congress are casting aside budget discipline. They're also deferring — for now — vows to finish the Reagan revolution against big government and turning to some of the same kinds of public health, housing and job assistance programs they once criticized as legacies of the Democrats' New Deal and Great Society. Bush called the project "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen" in prepared remarks for his Thursday evening address to the nation from New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina also opened the floodgates to proposals in Congress — some embraced by Bush — building on a host of long-cherished Republican themes. These include proposals for school vouchers for storm-displaced children; more federal support for "faith-based" organizations engaged in hurricane relief; business-friendly "enterprise zone" tax credits for companies that rebuild in stricken areas; and eased environmental and labor-protection requirements. "The fact of the matter is when our nation faces these type of emergencies, it unfortunately requires us to deficit spend. It's nothing that anybody in Washington, or anywhere for that matter, likes to do but it's necessary," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said ahead of Bush's speech. Some fiscal conservatives are expressing alarm. "It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt." Government failures at the federal, state and local levels are being widely blamed for the anarchy and loss of life in the early days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. "Yet now everybody says government is the answer. It's baffling," said Ronald D. Utt, who studies federal public works spending for the conservative Heritage Foundation. The foundation has proposed that Congress reopen the $286.4 billion transportation bill enacted in July to remove some $25 billion in what it deems questionable projects, including a proposed $230 million bridge in Alaska from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents. So far, Congress has sped through bills providing $62.3 billion for Katrina relief — and made it clear these are just first installments. "That's a good start, but victims need more," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said as Democrats worked to ensure they weren't left on the sidelines in the rush by the GOP-led Congress to open the government's wallets to storm victims. Government spending on Katrina has already dwarfed the $15.5 billion total from all levels of government spent on the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, $14 billion spent on last year's Florida hurricanes and $10.8 billion spent on Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., proposed that Congress create a Gulf Coast Redevelopment Authority, modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority, to oversee the reconstruction. TVA, created during the Depression as an independent federal agency, is widely credited with the revitalization of the seven-state Tennessee Valley region. Other lawmakers have called for a domestic version of the Marshall Plan that helped revive Europe after World War II, or something akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration, which put millions of unemployed people to work — mainly on road, bridge and dam projects — during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Robert Reich, who was labor secretary in the Clinton administration, said the storm is unusual in that so many people "were forced from their homes and are out of work." The     Congressional Budget Office has estimated 400,000 jobs were lost in the hurricane. Some independent estimates are far higher. "Almost a third of these people were below the poverty line," said Reich, now a professor of economic and social policy at Brandeis University. He said any reconstruction plan "would have to include a broad-based plan to revive business, industries and jobs." Talk about a massive new federal role in hurricane relief and reconstruction is already raising alarms among some state and local officials, who want to retain the say in rebuilding decisions — a prerogative Bush thus far seems inclined to give them. "I don't want anyone outside of New Orleans telling us how to plan this city," said New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who announced Thursday that large parts of the city will open next week and the storied French Quarter the week after that. "To anyone who even suggests that this great city should not be rebuilt, hear this and hear it well: We will rebuild," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco told a meeting of state lawmakers in Baton Rouge on Wednesday evening.

Aaaaaaaaaaaa.......I don't think Bush has ever met a spending bill he didn't like!! If I had known what "compassionate conservatism" has meant, I would have asked for "cheap &  frugal conservatism".

Accountant

votes for his next election........?

Why do you think they call them parties. When you have control of all the money and all the laws and get to do what you want when you want wouldn't it like be having a never ending party.

votes for his next election........?

No, votes for the republican majority legacy he is try to build.

Broader role for armed forces Bush -- who earlier this week took responsibility for a disaster response widely seen as sluggish and confused -- said the federal government would henceforth react to large disasters differently. He conceded "the system, at every level of government, was not well coordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days." "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority," he said, "and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice."

Did everyone miss this part????

The Myth of Posse Comitatus Major Craig T. Trebilcock, U.S. Army Reserve October 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Craig Trebilcock is a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the U.S. Army Reserve. He is assigned as an operational law attorney with the 153d Legal Support Organization in Norristown, PA. His area of specialization includes the laws applicable to U.S. forces engaged in operations in both the United States and abroad. Major Trebilcock is a graduate of the University of Michigan (A.B. with high honors, 1982) and the University of Michigan Law School (J.D., 1985). His military education includes the Judge Advocate General Basic Course (1988) and Advanced Course (1992), U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (1997), and the U.S. Navy War College International Relations Seminar (2000). Major Trebilcock is a civilian immigration attorney with the firm of Barley, Snyder, Senft, & Cohen in York, PA. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Posse Comitatus Act has traditionally been viewed as a major barrier to the use of U.S. military forces in planning for homeland defense.[1] In fact, many in uniform believe that the act precludes the use of U.S. military assets in domestic security operations in any but the most extraordinary situations. As is often the case, reality bears little resemblance to the myth for homeland defense planners. Through a gradual erosion of the act’s prohibitions over the past 20 years, posse comitatus today is more of a procedural formality than an actual impediment to the use of U.S. military forces in homeland defense. History The original 1878 Posse Comitatus Act was indeed passed with the intent of removing the Army from domestic law enforcement. Posse comitatus means “the power of the county,” reflecting the inherent power of the old West county sheriff to call upon a posse of able-bodied men to supplement law enforcement assets and thereby maintain the peace. Following the Civil War, the Army had been used extensively throughout the South to maintain civil order, to enforce the policies of the Reconstruction era, and to ensure that any lingering sentiments of rebellion were crushed. However, in reaching those goals, the Army necessarily became involved in traditional police roles and in enforcing politically volatile Reconstruction-era policies. The stationing of federal troops at political events and polling places under the justification of maintaining domestic order became of increasing concern to Congress, which felt that the Army was becoming politicized and straying from its original national defense mission. The Posse Comitatus Act was passed to remove the Army from civilian law enforcement and to return it to its role of defending the borders of the United States. Application of the Act To understand the extent to which the act has relevance today, it is important to understand to whom the act applies and under what circumstances. The statutory language of the act does not apply to all U.S. military forces.[2] While the act applies to the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines, including their Reserve components, it does not apply to the Coast Guard or to the huge military manpower resources of the National Guard.[3] The National Guard, when it is operating in its state status pursuant to Title 32 of the U.S. Code, is not subject to the prohibitions on civilian law enforcement. (Federal military forces operate pursuant to Title 10 of the U.S. Code.) In fact, one of the express missions of the Guard is to preserve the laws of the state during times of emergency when regular law enforcement assets prove inadequate. It is only when federalized pursuant to an exercise of presidential authority that the Guard becomes subject to the limitations of the Posse Comitatus Act. The intent of the act is to prevent the military forces of the United States from becoming a national police force or guardia civil. Accordingly, the act prohibits the use of the military to “execute the laws.”[4,5] Execution of the laws is perceived to be a civilian police function, which includes the arrest and detention of criminal suspects, search and seizure activities, restriction of civilian movement through the use of blockades or checkpoints, gathering evidence for use in court, and the use of undercover personnel in civilian drug enforcement activities.[6] The federal courts have had several opportunities to define what behavior by military personnel in support of civilian law enforcement is permissible under the act. The test applied by the courts has been to determine whether the role of military personnel in the law enforcement operation was “passive” or “active.” Active participation in civilian law enforcement, such as making arrests, is deemed a violation of the act, while taking a passive supporting role is not.[7] Passive support has often taken the form of logistical support to civilian police agencies. Recognizing that the military possesses unique equipment and uniquely trained personnel, the courts have held that providing supplies, equipment, training, facilities, and certain types of intelligence information does not violate the act. Military personnel may also be involved in planning law enforcement operations, as long as the actual arrest of suspects and seizure of evidence is carried out by civilian law enforcement personnel. The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in the 19th century, when the distinction between criminal law enforcement and defense of the national borders was clearer. Today, with the advent of technology that permits weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons—to be transported by a single person, the line between police functions and national security concerns has blurred. As a matter of policy, Western nations have labeled terrorists “criminals” to be prosecuted under domestic criminal laws. Consistent with this, the Department of Justice has been charged as the lead U.S. agency for combating terrorism. However, not all terrorist acts are planned and executed by non-state actors. Terrorism refers to illegal attacks on civilians and other nonmilitary targets by either state or non-state actors. This new type of threat requires a reassessment of traditional military roles and missions along with an examination of the relevance and benefits of the Posse Comitatus Act. Erosion of the Act While the act appears to prohibit active participation in law enforcement by the military, the reality in application has become quite different. The act is a statutory creation, not a constitutional prohibition. Accordingly, the act can and has been repeatedly circumvented by subsequent legislation. Since 1980, Congress and the president have significantly eroded the prohibitions of the act in order to meet a variety of law enforcement challenges. One of the most controversial uses of the military during the past 20 years has been to involve the Navy and Air Force in the “war on drugs.” Recognizing the inability of civilian law enforcement agencies to interdict the smuggling of drugs into the United States by air and sea, the Reagan Administration directed the Department of Defense to use naval and air assets to reach out beyond the borders of the United States to preempt drug smuggling. This use of the military in antidrug law enforcement was approved by Congress in 10 U.S.C., sections 371–381. This same legislation permitted the use of military forces in other traditionally civilian areas—immigration control and tariff enforcement. The use of the military in opposing drug smuggling and illegal immigration was a significant step away from the act’s central tenet that there was no proper role for the military in the direct enforcement of the laws. The legislative history explains that this new policy is consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act, as the military involvement still amounted to an indirect and logistical support of civilian law enforcement and not direct enforcement.[9] The weakness of the analysis of passive versus direct involvement in law enforcement was most graphically demonstrated in the tragic 1999 shooting of a shepherd by marines who had been assigned a mission to interdict smuggling and illegal immigration in the remote Southwest. An investigation revealed that for some inexplicable reason the 16-year-old shepherd fired his weapon in the direction of the marines. Return fire killed the boy. This tragedy demonstrates that when armed troops are placed in a position where they are being asked to counter potential criminal activity, it is a mere semantic exercise to argue that the military is being used in a passive support role. The fact that armed military troops were placed in a position with the mere possibility that they would have to use force to subdue civilian criminal activity reflects a significant policy shift by the executive branch away from the posse comitatus doctrine. Congress has also approved the use of the military in civilian law enforcement through the Civil Disturbance Statutes: 10 U.S.C., sections 331–334. These provisions permit the president to use military personnel to enforce civilian laws where the state has requested assistance or is unable to protect civil rights and property. In case of civil disturbance, the president must first give an order for the offenders to disperse. If the order is not obeyed, the president may then authorize military forces to make arrests and restore order. The scope of the Civil Disturbance Statutes is sufficiently broad to encompass civil disturbance resulting from terrorist or other criminal activity. It was these provisions that were relied upon to restore order using active-duty Army personnel following the Los Angeles “race riots” of the early 1990s. Federal military personnel may also be used pursuant to the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C., section 5121, in times of natural disaster upon request from a state governor. In such an instance, the Stafford Act permits the president to declare a major disaster and send in military forces on an emergency basis for up to ten days to preserve life and property. While the Stafford Act authority is still subject to the criteria of active versus passive, it represents a significant exception to the Posse Comitatus Act’s underlying principle that the military is not a domestic police force auxiliary. An infrequently cited constitutional power of the president provides an even broader basis for the president to use military forces in the context of homeland defense. This is the president’s inherent right and duty to preserve federal functions. In the past this has been recognized to authorize the president to preserve the freedom of navigable waterways and to put down armed insurrection. However, with the expansion of federal authority during this century into many areas formerly reserved to the states (transportation, commerce, education, civil rights) there is likewise an argument that the president’s power to preserve these “federal” functions has expanded as well. The use of federal troops in the South during the 1960s to preserve access to educational institutions for blacks was an exercise of this constitutional presidential authority. In the past five years, the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act has continued with the increasingly common use of military forces as security for essentially civilian events. During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, over ten thousand U.S. troops were deployed under the partial rationale that they were present to deter terrorism. The use of active-duty military forces in a traditional police security role did not raise any serious questions under the act, even though these troops would clearly have been in the middle of a massive law enforcement emergency had a large-scale terrorist incident occurred. The only questions of propriety arose when many of these troops were then employed as bus drivers or to maintain playing fields. This led to a momentary but passing expression of displeasure from Congress.[10] Homeland Defense The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in an era when the threat to national security came primarily from the standing armies and navies of foreign powers. Today the equation for national defense and security has changed significantly. With the fall of the Soviet Union our attention has been diverted—from the threat of aggression by massed armies crossing the plains of Europe to the security of our own soil against biological or chemical terrorism. Rather than focusing on massed Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles as our most imminent threat, we are increasingly more aware of the destructive potential of new forms of asymmetric warfare. For instance, the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment states that 100 kilograms of dry powdered anthrax released under ideal meteorological conditions could kill up to three million people in a city the size of Washington, DC.[11] The chemical warfare attacks carried out by Japanese terrorists in the subways of Tokyo during the 1990s heightened our sense of vulnerability. The Oklahoma City bombing and the unsuccessful attempt to topple the World Trade Center have our domestic security planners looking inward for threats against the soil of the United States from small but technologically advanced threats of highly motivated terrorists. What legal bar does the Posse Comitatus Act present today to using the military to prevent or respond to a biological or chemical attack on the soil of the United States? In view of the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act in the past 20 years, the answer is “not much.” The erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act through Congressional legislation and executive policy has left a hollow shell in place of a law that formerly was a real limitation on the military’s role in civilian law enforcement and security issues. The plethora of constitutional and statutory exceptions to the act provides the executive branch with a menu of options under which it can justify the use of military forces to combat domestic terrorism. Whether an act of terrorism is classified as a civil disturbance under 10 U.S.C., 331–334, or whether the president relies upon constitutional power to preserve federal functions, it is difficult to think of a domestic terrorism scenario of sizable scale under which the use of the military could not be lawfully justified in view of the act’s erosion. The act is no longer a realistic bar to direct military involvement in counterterrorism planning and operations. It is a low legal hurdle that can be easily cleared through invocation of the appropriate legal justification, either before or after the fact.[12] Conclusion Is the Posse Comitatus Act totally without meaning today? No, it remains a deterrent to prevent the unauthorized deployment of troops at the local level in response to what is purely a civilian law enforcement matter. Although no person has ever been successfully prosecuted under the act, it is available in criminal or administrative proceedings to punish a lower-level commander who uses military forces to pursue a common felon or to conduct sobriety checkpoints off of a federal military post. Officers have had their careers abruptly brought to a close by misusing federal military assets to support a purely civilian criminal matter. But does the act present a major barrier at the National Command Authority level to use of military forces in the battle against terrorism? The numerous exceptions and policy shifts carried out over the past 20 years strongly indicate that it does not. Could anyone seriously suggest that it is appropriate to use the military to interdict drugs and illegal aliens but preclude the military from countering terrorist threats that employ weapons of mass destruction? For two decades the military has been increasingly used as an auxiliary to civilian law enforcement when the capabilities of the police have been exceeded. Under both the statutory and constitutional exceptions that have permitted the use of the military in law enforcement since 1980, the president has ample authority to employ the military in homeland defense against the threat of weapons of mass destruction in terrorist hands.

Source for the article above.

Hmmmmmmmm

He's just giving the sheeple what they're bleating for.

Reminds me of another story I know of.

The people of Israel cried for a king. They had direct communication with God, but that wasn't enough. They wanted a king like the other tribes around them. God told them, you could talk to me and I have always given you all that you need, but you want a king?. O.k., you got it. so he sent the prophet out to anoint a kng.

Long story short, Saul became king, and eventualy a megalomaniac, obsessed with his won rule.




Point is, they cried until they got what they wanted. Same with the sheep.

Remember the boyscout motto.

Bush was the only choice other than Kerry, but that speech was scary with its spend-spend-spend theme and the federal authority implications. I did not see the face of a strong conservative leader. I saw the face of a big "benevolent" government.

"We're going to rebuild New Orleans" WTF for? So it can flood again?

This administration is trying to buy its way out of embarassment. They are borrowing money like there's no tomorrow. I'm writing my Senators to tell them to put the brakes on this spending.

Reagan (my personal hero) rolled over in his grave a few minutes after that speech started. Smaller government..............................................is dead.

I already have my family to support as well as 42 freeloaders who can't won't assume any personal responsibility for themselves. How many more do I need to drag through life on my mealticket?

Should the Federal Government rebuild Pittsburgh, which has roughly the same problem as New Orleans did? Should they start rebuilding CA now, before the inevitable earthquakes? When lightning strikes out West next summer and starts 100s of thousands of acres of fires, will that be Bush's fault as well (which means we will pay the bill)? Some places have inheirent natural geographic disadvantages. The rest of the country should not be responsible for people who decide to live in those places anyway when the time hits. WTF?

I am SO pissed about all this. WTF?

Get ready for more, not less, BIG government.

www.fairtax.org or read "the fair tax book* by neal boortz & ga's own rep. john linder.

visit it.

granted, this is off topic of big govt and it's responsibility or lack thereof, but it's a damn good way to spread out the tax burden on those who actually work for their $.

sure beats the shitty system we have now of 52% of the country paying damn near 100% of the taxes.

the plan will really help pad our wallets when our govt runs up the tab yet again. wouldn't you like to actually get 100% of your check each week instead of having it confiscated at gunpoint by our govt?

Wow, I come here to Brazil and America falls to hell in a handbasket.  WTF.  Someone stop the bleeding please.