In last week’s Lawrentian, Jon Horne wrote an editorial with the first sentence reading, and I quote as not to be called a plagiarizer again, “After eight years of Clinton, things are looking up for Republicans.”Well, Mr. Horne may have spoken too fast. It’s true that the economy seems to be on an upswing. Yet, according to a Gallup poll released Nov. 18, President Bush’s approval rating is tied for the lowest of his presidency.
It is the exact same percentage that it was two months ago, before the United States economy improved and before the United States said they were going to pull out of Iraq next summer. Weren’t these things good for Republicans?
Here are the cold, hard facts. The United States will have a projected annual budget deficit of $475 in 2004. The estimated cost of attendance for Lawrence, taken directly from the LU website, is $32,346.
Our budget deficit of $475 billion could provide 14,684,968 full Lawrence scholarships. That’s a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen.
Now, if we can all remember back to January of 2001 when President Bush took over, there was in fact a surplus in the United States coffers. Yet people laud the Republicans’ “fiscal conservatism.”
The fact is Republicans spend more than Democrats do and have less money coming in through taxes to cover such spending. Sounds like fuzzy math all over again.
By the time you read this, President Bush will be on his way home from a three-day state visit in the United Kingdom. However, President Bush isn’t so well liked over here. In fact, there is a national protest with over 100,000 people expected to march through the city.
The Bush camp is scared of terrorists exploiting the crowd, so he has asked Scotland Yard to actually shut down transportation services and mobile phone services in parts of London where Mr. Bush will be. All of London’s 15,000 police officers will be on full alert. He is bringing his own security force of over 250 secret service agents, rooftop snipers, and U.S. Army gunship helicopters to London.
The cost of all this? A minute $10 million for three days. At least we can pass this one off on the British, right?