President John F. Kennedy
And from systematically dismantling many of the regulations protecting our country's environment to pushing through a tax-cut aimed at preserving the wealth of the super-rich (see "my base," above), one per cent of all taxpaying Americans, W stayed loyal to them for eight years.
This paradigm comes to my mind when I consider that the House has already cut $900 billion from social and job-creating programs like Head Start, education, highways, bridges and railways. All this before we even consider the Super committee and its non-conclusions.
To see what will happen when the automatic $1.2 trillion cuts come into being in two years - half from the military and half from the rest of the government's programs - all you have to do is look around at what's happened since this new group of Tea Partiers and their minions took their seats in the House of Representatives last year. And let us not forget the carnage wrought to Florida's environmental protection structures by our John Wayne governor, Rick Scott, whose aim at shooting down the agencies regulating growth, our water supply, and our longsuffering Everglades has been somewhat more accurate than that of his fellow Neanderthal, Dick Cheney.
When you combine federal and state cuts to most social programs designed to assist those less fortunate, you find serious problems. For one local example, near my hometown of Coral Gables, there is a ranch (Good Hope Equestrian Training Center) where autistic and other disabled children and adults are helped toward independent living through working with and being around horses. The nine-year-old program has helped thousands of young people gain the confidence to live more normal lives.
According to Center Executive Director Peggy Bass, cuts in federal and state programs have already forced her to downsize to half her staff - and thus help half as many kids - never mind the cuts she'll have to make when the $1.2 trillion bomb hits.
Here's an imagined dialogue:
Democrats: "We need to let the tax cut to the mega rich expire. It passed under W, and is clearly a thorn in the people's side. With this money, and more from Defense and other big cost cuts, we can get the deficit under control and regain our position as world leaders with a stable dollar and a working political system. Not to mention get re-elected."
Republicans: "We need to re-instate the tax cut to the wealthy, as they're the ones who invest their bucks in creating the jobs. What we need to cut is the waste in social security, Medicare and thousands of environmental regulations. Once the environment is off the table, developers will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and we will get the deficit stabilized. And get re-elected."
Standard and Poor's, after cutting the U.S. rating from AAA to AA+, now says it doesn't expect to cut it again. Moody's maintains the AAA rating with a big "negative" at the end. Next week, Congress has to decide whether to add to the debt by leaving in place the payroll tax cut, another politically charged issue being carefully watched by management and labor both.
All this while the Near East and North Africa explode in what are essentially revolutions, and, somewhat less violently, are mirrored by the "Occupy" demonstrations which started on Wall Street and have now spread to Main Street.
These are the times when one yearns for courage and intelligence in our political leadership. We turn to the history books and find that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt faced similar conditions of grave danger to the country; each stood by his best judgement and prevailed in the end. More recently, John F. Kennedy stood looking at the possibility of nuclear war if he made the wrong decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the future of the world in his hands, he chose diplomacy over bombs - and won.
Where are leaders like these today?
Certainly not in the CNN debates.
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With the announcement by President Obama that US forces will leave Iraq by the end of 2011, as many as 40, 000 US servicemen and women will be returning home. Not all will be needed in stateside assignments. This fact, coupled with the estimated 14 million unemployed and 8.8 million under-employed, it is unlikely many of these honorably discharged vets returning to civilian life will walk right back into jobs.
Rahm Emanuel is making headlines again, not in Washington but in his home town of Chicago. An Illinois appellate court has ruled Emanuel doesn't meet the residency requirements to run for mayor of the Windy City.
The infamous Al "Scarface" Capone knew that simple fact of life. Capone ran the rackets in Chicago for a decade in the 1930s because he knew which politicians to support.
Still, it didn't in the case of another big name politician a year ago--- Rod Bogdanovich, 40th Governor of Illinois (Jan. 13, 2003 to Jan. 29, 2009). Remember him?
By now, everybody who even has a tiny interest in national politics and their own pocket book has heard of Vermont Republican Sen. Bernie Sanders' caper on the Senate floor last Friday.
Former President George W. Bush was the author of those tax breaks, largely to the super-wealthy, claim Obama opponents in both the Republican camp and within his own Democratic Party.
'President' Trump?
Reagan became the 40th President of the United States (1981 to 1989). Schwarzenegger became the 38th Governor of California (2003 to 2010). Both were Republicans.
Palin is an opportunist from a hick town in Alaska. Yet she maneuvered her way to the Governor's mansion in that polar-bear state.
Yet among adults who identified themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, 79 percent view her favorably.
He also said: "Every time this country starts to get stronger, they [OPEC] raise the [oil] price, they sap blood right out of you....The US had protected many of the oil-producing countries in the past.
Women voters in the Nov. 2 Mid-Term Elections shot down President Barack Obama's Democratic candidates for Congress and state governorships.
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will be waiting in the wings to offer advice and direction, if he is asked to do so. Which, of course, he will happily do.
The American voters will support whatever candidate they feel will best improve their quality of life. They will move from Republican to Democrat to Independent or to whatever new party surfaces that connects with their desires and ideals.