LOOKING THE GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH...

With every passing week there are more scruffy people with crudely scribbled begging placards taking their places at intersections to ask for money from motorists. Listening to news commentators and to President Bush’s people describing Americans eagerly waiting with outstretched hands for the $300 or $600 gift from the government, one might conclude that America is fast becoming a nation of beggars. Where is the proud nation that was challenged almost fifty years ago by President John F. Kennedy declaring, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”? President George W. Bush has a very different remedy for our country’s problems. He apparently wants individual citizens to ask not how they may help the country pay its growing national debt, but whether they will receive a “gift” of $300 or $600 from his administration to secure their good will and their votes for his party in the next general elections. Instead of demanding to know how we are going to get out from under the burden of a national debt that would cost each of us nearly $37,000 to pay, we stand with our hands out to receive his bribe.

Where is the money for the bribe coming from? Will it be taken from programs that address educational needs of the nation’s children? Might it be generated by reducing services for our men and women serving in the military? Will the Department of Transportation have its budget reduced? What about the Department of Health and Safety? What about Social Security? How about Medicare? The Environment? With no clear statement about where he will get the money, the President is giving me and people like me $600.

It is reported that veterans must wait weeks to see a mental health provider even though it is known by the President and leaders in his administration that in the past year 121 soldiers committed suicide and another 2100 attempted suicide. Soldiers in combat zones are among Americans losing their homes to foreclosure. Lenders can seek a court order to foreclose on a house even if it is the home of a soldier in combat. When the soldier comes home from war he or she must struggle with high gas and food prices. Returning soldiers find that student loans for college are more difficult to get and more expensive than they were before George W. Bush became president. And his solution to the problem is to give me and others like me $600.

I will not let a check in the mail, a $600 bribe, move me to ignore all that this administration has done to bring our country to the brink of bankruptcy. I will not be bribed to forget the damage to the environment, the increased numbers of hungry people in lines at food banks, and the growing national debt.

SECOND THOUGHTS: If spending the $600 "gift" doesn't save the American economy, perhaps the next "gift" from the President will be an American Flag stick pin for us to wear on our collars. That should solve all our problems. If that doesn't work, he can always give each of us a t-shirt with an elephant on it...maybe two elephants.Sri Lanka, March 19, 2005