September 30, 2003

America Is For Aliens

So you think your government looks out for you? Not nearly as much as it does for aliens.

On September 24, Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that the Bush administration has quietly decided to stiff 6 million poor elderly and disabled Americans by denying them Medicare drug benefits. According to the Bush administration, these Americans are already covered under state Medicaid programs.

President Bush should read the newspapers. On September 23 Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that “rising costs prompt states to reduce Medicaid further.”

It seems that the job loss recovery has forced virtually every state to take action to cut back on Medicaid.

Not to worry. All the 6 million poor and disabled Americans need to do is to acquire Mexican citizenship and recross the border as illegal aliens. Once Americans acquire the status of illegal aliens, their medical care is provided free without even a co-pay.

American veterans can take recourse to the same solution for their plight. The Bush administration plans to cut veterans’ benefits by $28 billion over the next 10 years. Democrats claim the cuts could cause half of all veterans to lose their only source of medical care and could even prevent them from receiving their disability pensions.

Not to worry, veterans who defended your country, just become Mexican illegals, and you will be cared for.

Are you the parent of a college-aged student who you would like to send to your alma mater, but can’t as you have moved away from home, placing out-of-state tuition between you and your old school? Not to worry. Just send your offspring in search of Mexican citizenship. Depending on the location of your alma mater, once your son or daughter recrosses the border as an alien, the state’s taxpayers will cover the out-of-state tuition charge.

Not to worry about being caught crossing the border. Senator Robert Byrd’s amendment to the homeland security appropriations to provide $125 million to put 1,300 customs inspectors to help patrol our borders was rejected by the Bush administration as “too expensive.”

The same day President Bush made an “emergency request” for $150 million to pay for “border inspections personnel” on Iraq’s borders.

Meanwhile as our caring government stiffs veterans, the poor and the disabled, Bush intends to spend $15 billion on AIDS in Africa and wants $87 billion as a mere down payment for Iraq.

The Washington Post reports (“In GOP, Concern Over Iraq Price Tag,” by Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin, September 26, 2003) that hidden in the $87 billion for Iraq are

“$100 million to build seven planned communities with a total of 3,258 houses, plus roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market for each [planned community]; $10 million to finance 100 prison-building experts for six months at $100,000 an expert; 40 garbage trucks at $50,000 each; $900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world’s second-largest oil reserves; and $20 million for a four-week business course, at $10,000 per student.”

Every conceivable Republican contributor is being rewarded. But our 1,500 wounded soldiers—many missing an arm, leg, or eye—are being charged for their meals during their hospital stays. And the Pentagon wants to cut the pay of our troops in Iraq, denying them $75 a month in “imminent danger pay” and $150 a month in “family separation allowances.”

As any fool can see, Americans come first with their government.

Leaders on the Pentagon hand-picked “Iraqi Governing Council” say the $87 billion is ten times the amount required.

“Where they [the Americans] spend $1 billion, we would spend $100 million,” said Ahmad al-Barak, a human rights lawyer and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council. Just give us $8.7 billion and go home, he recommended.

Did you know that only $20.3 billion of the $87 billion—merely 23 percent—is dedicated to Iraq’s reconstruction? You can imagine the rake-offs in the remaining 77 percent. This is the greatest pork-barrel rip-off of the American taxpayer in history.

Not to worry. Bush is going to take it out of Medicaid and Veterans’ Benefits. Now that we are going to conquer the world and have an empire, we have to cultivate a more hardy breed of people here at home.

Welfare is for Muslims. To soften them up, you know.

According to economist Thomas Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College for a conference at the University of Maine, since 1973 Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion, or $5,700 per American.

Let’s see, that covers 5 million Israelis.

Imagine what we can spend on 600 million Muslims.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.