The following is an open letter to U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas that
was
emailed to his office, other politicians, the media, and others on Oct.
22, 2002.
Dear U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm,
I am a Texan who received a recorded phone call this morning with your
voice urging me to vote Republican on Nov. 5. You urged me to vote for
the "great" Republican candidates who are running for U.S. Senate, the
U.S.
House of Representatives, and Texas and local offices.
Here is the "great" job Republicans like you and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchison and U.S. Rep. Dick Armey and Bush and Cheney and others have
done since y’all – as we say in Texas - stole the White House in late 2000:
* Unemployment has risen from 4 percent
to 6 percent, while under Democratic
President Bill Clinton, unemployment went down from 7 percent to 4 percent.
* The poverty rate went up for the
first time in eight years, from 11.3
percent in 2000 to 11.7 percent in 2001, according to federal government
figures. The number of Americans living under the federal poverty level
INCREASED by 1.3 million in 2001, while under President Clinton the
number of impoverished Americans DECLINED by 7.7 million.
* The share of income going to the
poorest fifth of households declined,
for the first time in five years, from 3.6 percent in 2000 to a record-low
3.5 percent in 2001. The next-to-the-bottom [8.7 percent] and middle
[14.6 percent] fifths of households also saw their pieces of the pie drop
to
all-time lows, dating to 1967, when such statistics were first recorded.
The share going to the next-to-the-top [23 percent] fifth tied for an all-time
low.
* The percentage of income going to
the richest 20 percent of households
went the opposite way, increasing from 49.8 percent in 2000 to a record-high
50.2 percent in 2001. The wealthiest Americans’ pie piece rises even more
– to
55.6 percent - if you include capital gains, such as the windfall Bush
received
when his interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team was sold to campaign
contributor Tom Hicks in 1994 [Bush reported this as capital gains, rather
than
income, to pay the least amount of taxes].
* The average amount by which Americans
fell below the poverty level also
hit a record of $2,707 [data goes to 1979], according to the Washington,
D.C.-based
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And experts don’t expect the trend
to change soon.
* More than a net 1 million jobs have
been lost since early 2001, while
under President Clinton, more than a net 22 million jobs were gained.
* More than 2 million people were laid
off in 2001 by companies like Enron
and Worldcom that you Republicans support so much, and we are on target
to
reach more than another 2 million layoffs in 2002, according to the U.S.
Labor
Department. That is the most since the early 1980s, when another Republican
administration controlled the White House.
* The percentage of MBA graduates in
the top 30 U.S. business schools who
have a job within three months of graduation declined from 97 percent in
2000 to
80 percent in 2002, according to Business Week.
* We now have returned to Republican-led
budget deficits again, after getting
good surpluses under President Clinton.
* We are in the midst of starting World
War III with our irresponsible,
go-it-alone invasion of Iraq. More than 25 countries – including those
that aren’t
favorable to us like Pakistan – already have nuclear weapons, and others
like Iran
and North Korea are much farther along in building these weapons of mass
destruction than Iraq. Republicans have failed to link Hussein with the
Sept. 11, 2001,
acts of terrorism. Bush is on record as saying he’s going after Hussein
for personal
reasons because Hussein tried to kill his dad. Others say oil is a big
factor since Iraq
is the second-leading exporter of oil in the world, and U.S. companies
want a bigger
role in controlling that. And Bush and you and others are willing to sacrifice
American,
Iraqi, and others lives for the sake of personal, petty, putrid politics.
* Republicans have created much ill-will
among our allies overseas by
breaking nuclear treaties, not signing environmental pacts like the Kyoto
Treaty,
refusing to support an international court to resolve international disputes,
and other
arrogant, selfish decisions. How can we expect other countries to support
us when we
don’t support international issues they care about?
* The federal government is desecrating
our national parks by putting oil wells in
such places as Utah’s Arches Park.
* The ranks of people without health
insurance swelled by about 2 million in 2001,
to some 41 million, the largest one-year increase in nearly a decade, according
to
Covering the Uninsured, a partnership of national organizations that includes
the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. Republican politicians like Bush and
Cheney
have done NOTHING to address the increase in the uninsured.
* Republicans want to invest Social
Security funds in the stock market, which has
dropped significantly since Bush & Co. stole the White House.
* Crime increased across the country
by 2 percent in 2001, according to the FBI,
the first increase in more than a decade.
* Republicans care more about school
children saying the Pledge of Allegiance than
significantly increasing funding for education, especially higher education
to lower tuition
and fees, which will do much more to further our pledge of "liberty and
justice for all"
than simply saying that pledge.
* Republicans have cut many domestic
programs, causing the ranks of the
homeless to rise again.
* The number of protests and protesters
against the federal government’s
policies has increased dramatically in the past two years.
* Civil liberties are being eroded, as many Republicans push to create a police state.
* More far-right judges who will stop
our elections to tell us who won and make other
undemocratic decisions have been appointed to federal courts.
* Republicans continue to blame Clinton
for everything that goes wrong under them,
making a mockery of their claim to "take responsibility."
* Little has been done to fix the electoral
"problems" and fraud that occurred, mostly
by the Republicans, in the 2000 election.
* Bush has already taken more days
of vacation than probably any American president
in history, including the entire month of August 2001 when he was told
early that month of
an impending terrorist attack and remained on vacation for the entire month,
doing nothing
about what he was told.
* And so on. And so on. And so on.
I can come up with more failures of the Republicans in the last two years,
but this should do for now.
In your recording, you also thanked me for supporting you in the past 24
years and referred
to Texas as "the greatest state in the greatest country in the history
of the world." Besides
wanting to know what criteria you use to define the greatest state and
greatest country, I could
come up with a list at least this long of reasons why Texas is not the
greatest state [for instance,
we rank among the highest rates of poverty and people without health insurance
in the nation]
and the U.S. is not the greatest country [for instance, numerous other
countries have much
fewer homeless people and people without health insurance]. I should add
that I have NEVER
voted for you or given you any money in the last 24 years, so I don’t know
how you can say
I supported you.
Again, I am extremely angry about your propaganda phone call this morning,
and I hope you
do not make any such calls to me in the future.
For liberty and justice for all – not just hollowly mouthing the words, as so many Republicans do,
Jackson Thoreau
A Texan who votes and tells others to vote DEMOCRATIC
P.S. You ended your recording with "I love ya." You don’t love me. You
love wealthy yahoos
who fund your campaigns who you pay back using our tax money. I find that
ending almost as
offensive as you calling Republican politicians "great."
Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate
White House.
The 110,000-word electronic book can be downloaded by Clicking
Here or Clicking
Here
Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.