George W. Bush: brutally mean conservative

I tend not to believe the liberals who say President Bush isn't that bright. I have yet to find a liberal who knows the President and says he isn't smart. On the contrary, all of the liberals I know who have spent time with the President have found him to be a smart guy.

Why is that important? Because the President's budget proposal either contains some incredibly stupid mistakes or the President of the United States is just plain mean. Either way, he certainly isn't interested in the wise use of taxpayer money.

This is from Bob Herbert in today's edition of the New York Times.

"The federal government has a national breast and cervical cancer early detection program, run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It provides screening and other important services to low-income women who do not have health insurance, or are underinsured.

There is agreement across the board that the program is a success. It saves lives and it saves money. Its biggest problem is that it doesn't reach enough women. At the moment there is only enough funding to screen one in five eligible women.

A sensible policy position for the Bush administration would be to expand funding for the program so that it reached everyone who was eligible. It terms of overall federal spending, the result would be a net decrease. Preventing cancer, or treating it early, is a lot less expensive than treating advanced cancer.

So what did this president do? He proposed a cut in the program of $1.4 million (a minuscule amount when you're talking about the national budget), which would mean that 4,000 fewer women would have access to early detection.

This makes no sense. In human terms, it is cruel. From a budget standpoint, it's self-defeating."

"The program is really designed to help working women," said Dan Smith, a senior vice president at the American Cancer Society. "They may be working at a job that doesn't provide health insurance, but they're not the poorest of the poor who would qualify for Medicaid."

What is most amazing is that they President proposed cuts in every single cancer program in the Federal budget. He didn't go in and look to see which program was having success and which was failing. He cut them all.

It appears the Presidential position on how to reform health care in this country is to wait until people are sick and then spend billions of dollars caring for them and trying to cure them of disease. What the medical and scientific community know, however, is that this is the most expensive way to do health care. Early detection and prevention of disease allow governments to spend less money while American families avoid being faced with the pain and despair caused by the diagnosis and treatment of terminal illnesses.

Our house is on the market!

Our house is on the market! Click here to see the place online. Please feel free to encourage everyone you know to move to Austin and buy this wonderful house.

Colorado Senator Wayne Allard is a chump

Isn't it amazing when we get to see the true colors of someone like Wayne Allard? Here is an excerpt from the Denver Post regarding what Allard had to say about Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.

In an interview first broadcast Monday, Allard told Denver radio station KOA-AM reporter Roger Hudson that Sen. Russ Fein gold, D-Wis., "has time and time again taken on the side of the terrorists that we're dealing with in this conflict."

Allard, R-Colo., made the comment when asked his thoughts on Feingold's introducing a resolution in Congress to censure President Bush because of the domestic wiretapping program by the National Security Agency. Feingold's proposal has not received any support in the Senate.

Clearly, Allard has no interest in public policy or the first amendment. His world view is that you are either a blind follower of the President of the United States or you are a terrorist sympathizer.

The problem with Allard and his ilk is that they are only interested in political games and power. They could care less about Democracy or public policy. They don't believe in uniting America. They believe in a scorched earth policy in which those who disagree are to be destroyed.

It is that same attitude which leads to administration policies that violate the law. It is that same attitude that leads to the overt politicization of the Justice Department by the Bush administration. The lack of respect for the rule of law and the lack of respect for democracy among these Republicans is amazing to me.

Update on a couple of issues

Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging, doesn't it?

I've been going through a very busy time at work and on top of that we are trying to move the family to Denver.

Our house goes on the market tomorrow. I'll post a link to the website marketing the house.

A few weeks ago we took the entire family to Denver. Kelly and I looked at almost 30 houses in two days. We found three we liked -- one in Littleton, one in Aurora and one in Highlands Ranch. We made an offer on the Littleton house and thought we were going to get it but got beat out by a family that could close faster than we could. Our plan was to then make an offer on the Aurora house but we found out that had structural problems. Then we found out the Highlands Ranch house had structural problems.

So we'll be back in Denver in a few weeks to look for houses once again.

One of our issues is that we need a lot of bedrooms and/or office space. We both will be working from home offices and need to be able to set that up. Combining that with our budget shrinks the number of houses that will work for us.

At any rate we plan on finding a house on our next trip and then moving in early May.