The Bush Base Prospers

Washington recently handed $70 billion in capital gains tax cuts to the wealthy. So, how might a rich person spend the extra money they find in their checkbooks? Like this, according to a story in the New York Times:

David H. Brooks, the chief executive of a company that supplies body armor to the American military in Iraq, invited 150 of his daughter's friends to the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, where they were serenaded by 50 Cent, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks and other luminaries during a birthday party reported to have cost $10 million.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate just passed a brutal budget package that cuts funding for health care, student loans, child support enforcement, foster care funding, and other programs by $40 billion over the next five years. Thanks to the GOP, poor families will be lucky if they can afford a cake for their children, let alone a party or gift.

Getting back to David Brooks, he didn’t just find extra money as a result of the tax breaks. His company, Point Blank Body Armor, Inc., has a contract with the Pentagon that could total $500 million over the next three years. That’s a sweet deal for Brooks, but not our soldiers. The military is recalling more than 18,000 protective vests because they did not meet ballistic test standards when the body armor was made up to five years ago. It’s also the second recall in six months.

Finally, while Washington has been busy giving tax breaks to the rich and lucrative contracts to war profiteers, they’ve been reneging on promises made to our soldiers – the very soldiers risking life and limb for our country.

John MacArthur signed up for 8 years in the Army Reserves, hoping to get his schooling paid for by the military. He served in Kuwait less than a year ago and was told if he spends more than 90 days in a war-zone, his 300 dollar monthly stipend would double. Now he's been trying to get the money for school but is being told by military officials, more soldiers are going to school than they planned for and now the money is gone. John says he knew when he enlisted nothing was guaranteed but says never thought the reason he signed up would be taken away from him.

The Washington elite certainly takes care of their own – their “base” as Bush likes to call them – which leaves the rest of us out in the cold – literally.