Our Views
Adventures in red ink
One constant about forecasts of the federal budget deficit: They keep getting worse.Last month, the White House predicted the deficit for the 2004 budget year, which begins Oct. 1, would be $475 billion. Now the Congressional Budget Office says it will be $480 billion.
Both predictions are low, and the deficit more likely will exceed a half-trillion dollars. The White House professes nonchalance about the red ink, but congressional Republicans are increasingly uneasy and Democrats think they have themselves a campaign issue. They may have.
Come Sept. 30, when fiscal 2003 will end with a deficit of around $450 billion, President Bush will have obliterated the previous record for a deficit, $290 billion set by his father in 1992. President Clinton, buoyed by a good economy and prodded by a Republican Congress considerably more disciplined than the current one, had four straight years of budget surpluses and left office with the budget $127 billion in the black.
The deficit outlook is even bleaker than the CBO lets on. That's because the CBO is required to base its forecasts on several unlikely assumptions — that Congress will enact no new spending programs and that it meant what it said when it called for the $1.3 trillion Bush tax cut to expire in 2010. And it does not include the cost of pacifying Iraq because the White House hasn't made a specific request for that money.
The cost of Iraq is said to be running at $4.9 billion a month. Congress is unlikely to let most of those tax cuts expire, and it's almost sure to approve $400 billion in new spending on prescription drugs. And we've reverted to the bad habit of using Social Security money to pay for day-to-day government operations.
The administration argues, less and less convincingly, that economic growth will take care of the deficit, but the CBO estimates already factor in relatively healthy annual growth rates of 3 percent. House Democrats say, and the numbers seem to back them up, that the annual deficits will get no lower than $300 billion in the next decade. Even the CBO's estimate has us racking up a cumulative new debt of $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
Mr. President, we hate to welcome you back from vacation this way, but
we have a problem.
Made quick work of it
Less than one-and-a-half hours after workmen were first seen gathering around Roy Moore's Ten Commandments Monument Wednesday morning, the 5,280-pound sculpture was rolled quickly out of the Alabama Judicial Building rotunda.When the monument was installed more than two years ago, "It took several hours to get it in," according to Tom Parker. A frequent spokesman for the suspended Alabama chief justice, Parker suggested to reporters earlier this week that removal would be a similarly challenging undertaking.
The ease of the removal is striking. Do you think the fact that the monument's installation was videotaped for a private religious organization's fund-raising efforts might explain why installation took longer? After all, a longer production makes it easier to add dramatic touches.
Be that as it may, the ease with which the court-ordered removal took
place once it was started indicates it would be easy for Roy Moore to load
his copyrighted sculpture onto a trailer and take off on the lucrative
lecture circuit for some show-and-tell once his legal appeals of Judge
Myron Thompson's order have been exhausted — which is not likely to be
much longer.
The hot-wire poll
The tut-tutting environmentalists who disapprove of SUVs and want to cram us all into little hybrid-powered econoboxes have truly got their work cut out for them.Despite uplifting lectures about conserving Earth's resources and snide hints that they suffer from raging inferiority complexes, car buyers persist in their love affairs with big vehicles, especially SUVs. Now, it seems, the environmentalists' message has failed to catch on with another critical element of the automotive public — car thieves.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, of the 10 cars most often targeted by car thieves, five are SUVs, one is a honking-huge pickup, two are large four-doors, another is a mid-size, and only one, the Mitsubishi Mirage, is a fuel-efficient — 28 mpg in the city — little two-door.
What the thieves most want is Cadillac's $55,000 four-wheel-drive Escalade, which the Environmental Protection Agency says gets 12 mpg in city driving. They also favor such cars of similar bulk as the Lincoln Navigator — both two-wheel- and four-wheel-drive versions — and the Ford Expedition and the big Dodge Ram 1500 pickup. Also in the top 10 are the Jeep Wrangler, the Dodge Stratus, the Dodge Intrepid and the Chrysler Sebring. (Chauvinists will note 9 of the 10 are American.)
The environmentalists have a real selling job on their hands with
small, hybrid or electric cars when even the car thieves don't want
them.
Look Back
From Birmingham Post-Herald files:
Wrecking crews are at work tearing up safety islands along First Avenue
North.
Postmaster General William Bolger meets with heads of three postal
unions but refuses to reopen contract negotiations to head off mail
strike.
Your Views
Stop erosion of our Godly heritage
I have lived long enough to hear about running down rabbits in the snow for food during the Depression, through many dangers and snares to where we are now, from a nation that had laws stating slavery was OK, to now with laws that some liberal judge interprets to state that a monument showing the Ten Commandments must be removed from a public place.Mistreatment of blacks was finally recognized by our government as wrong. Now it is time our government rules in favor of God, declaring that symbols depicting God's law, which is the basis of all law today, can be publicly displayed whether the ungodly opposes it or not.
Pardon my soap box sermon but I, along with countless other Christians, believe that a line must be drawn in the sand to prevent the further erosion of the Godly heritage this country was founded upon. I challenge all who trust in God to call your government officials starting with Gov. Riley, declaring your support of having the Ten Commandments prominently displayed in the state Judicial Building.
Eddie Drane
Sheffield 35660-6857
Not up to job
Our justice system is based on at least three principles:1. Law: The body of laws of a state or nation dealing with the rights and obligations of citizens.
2. Precedent: Judicial decisions used as standards in subsequent similar cases.
3. Constancy: Administered uniformly — not dependent on time, place, or person.
Now comes Chief Justice Roy Moore, accused of violating the "separation of church and state." I take that to mean that part of the First Amendment that states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." Quite plainly, only Congress can violate that part of the amendment.
In United States v. Cruikshank et al., 92 U.S. 542 (1875), speaking of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court said: ''This, like the other amendments proposed and adopted at the same time, was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National government alone."
It would seem that the states are free to promote one religion over another, ban some religions as they see fit, or none of the above. It is up to our courts to provide constancy, but they don't seem up to the job.
William Priven
Huntsville 35810
Great example
Suspended Justice Roy Moore is setting a great example of first, state authority can be ignored and second, ignoring state authority can be a good thing. Most citizens are under the erroneous impression that we must submit to state authority or be prepared to be brutally clubbed into submission.Moore is showing us the error of our ways. So good citizens of Alabama, pay close attention to our suspended justice to learn how to get away with ignoring state authority and even turning defiance into a plus.
Philip Rabne
Birmingham 35206
Two Roys
What do Judge Roy Bean and Judge Roy Moore have in common?In their days both were known as hanging judges. Judge Roy Bean for hanging outlaws, cattle rustlers, horse thieves and murderers. Judge Roy Moore for hanging the Ten Commandments.
Both men got into political hot water for their stance.
Harold L. Smith
Mount Olive 35117
A vow
I vow to defend the separation of church and state, so help me God. ...Armond "Si" Simmons
Pell City 35128
Roy Moore should turn in his robe
In the angry, strident cadence of a revival preacher, Roy Moore, suspended from his job as chief justice, said at his news conference on Aug. 25, "It's not about religion. It's not about the monument. It's about acknowledging Almighty God!"Say what?
I say it's about Moore's pleasure in getting others to knuckle under to him. You know folks like that. They often get their way because they have to. Of course, Moore says he's fighting in the name of God, virtue, righteousness and the people of Alabama. If he didn't, he claims it would be a violation of his conscience and treason. Rave on, Roy.
Experience has taught me to be uneasy about those who want to do good for those who don't want it done to them. Often these do-gooders are hiding unspeakable secrets or they're up to something. Maybe both.
Moore has discredited himself, the courts and Alabama's already shaky reputation. He should turn in his robe. Now. But he won't; he's nothing if not a fighter to the bitter end. Alas, the mark of many demagogues.
Ken Cornelius
Hoover 35226
Non-religious
If every single adult citizen of the United States decided to convert to Hinduism tomorrow, Burger King might be in deep trouble, but not a single line or word of the U.S. Constitution would have to be changed.If the following day we all decided to become Muslims, or atheists, or Southern Baptists, guess what? Same thing, nothing would have to be changed in the Constitution. That is the beauty of it.
The government of the United States was designed from the beginning to be non-religious. The Deity is not mentioned in the Constitution. "In God We Trust" wasn't adopted as the motto of the United States until 1956 — and that was a mistake, and certainly unconstitutional.
What are Roy Moore and his supporters so worried about? The American people are among the most religious in the world, and Alabama is rightly said to be the very buckle of the Bible Belt. There's a church on every street corner, preachers all over the radio dial, and Jesus-fish on every other car bumper. God doesn't need any help being acknowledged here.
Let Judge Moore take his 5,280-pound religious icon and put it on his front lawn. Or in his church, or anywhere but in a government building that belongs to all the people, but to no religion.
Richard Slagle
Bessemer 35020
When did God change?
The controversy over Moore's "Ten Commandants Rock" raises an interesting question. When Moses received the commandants, God said "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." (Exodus 20:25)Later in chapter 27 of Exodus, Aaron is the CEO and his relatives are bureaucrats of a theocratic government. They never have to work again; they receive 10 percent of all the yield of the land, all the barbecue they can eat and magnificent manmade altars.
By requiring a "simple altar of unhewn stone," was God saying just look around you and realize that nothing you can do can come close to the gifts I've already bestowed upon you.
When did God change from being pleased with a "simple altar of unhewn stone" to requiring man-made monuments?
Joe Boyett
Montgomery 36111
Best laugh
I just wanted to thank Judge Moore and all his friends for the best laugh in a long time. We used to think all the fruits and nuts had moved to California. It's good to see the home-grown kind can also create havoc. Thanks for making California No. 2. You deserve it.Bill French
San Diego, Calif. 92104
Thank you
I would like to personally thank Judge Moore for making the California recall circus look like a boring affair.Bill Travis
San Francisco, Calif. 94117-2912
Other Views
Peacekeepers need more Iraqis, not more U.S. troops
GEORGE WILL
THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP
WASHINGTON — It
is sad yet stirring to say. With a realist's melancholy sense of the human
cost of things, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is saying it:
Part of the good news out of Iraq — good news obscured by recent bad news, and sometimes mistaken for unalloyed bad news — is that the deaths, including 62, 63 or 64 Americans depending on the military source, caused by hostile action in Iraq since major combat operations ended include the deaths of almost 50 Iraqis. They died, Wolfowitz says, as exemplary pioneers of Iraq's progress up from tyranny, while working with coalition forces to secure public order and create civil society.
Wolfowitz says such casualties are plain, and stirring, evidence of — and an unavoidable consequence of — a desirable development; the slowly growing willingness and capacity of Iraqis to take responsibility for their nation's recovery. The capture last week of "Chemical Ali," Saddam Hussein's cousin, suggests that U.S. commanders in Iraq are receiving intelligence from Iraqis willing to take risky initiatives for a better tomorrow.
All this is pertinent to the boiling debate in Washington — Wolfowitz insists that it is much more a debate here than in Baghdad — about whether the United States needs more troops in Iraq. He says the real need is for more Iraqi-staffed instruments of social control — troops and police. Hence plans to send 28,000 Iraqis to Hungary for police training.
When some persons in or close to the administration argue that U.S. forces in Iraq are sufficient, they really seem to be arguing that existing forces should have been sufficient. They mean the forces there now would be sufficient, if ...
If in the run-up to war the CIA and State Department had been less opposed to the war, and less hostile to what they called "externals," meaning Iraqi exiles. This hostility expressed a perverse premise: Those who remained in Iraq under Saddam were somehow morally superior to those who went into exile to work for liberation. Absent hostility toward "externals," more Iraqis competent to work on public safety and civil administration would have arrived immediately behind coalition troops.
If the CIA had more accurately anticipated the continued opposition of Baathist remnants and had been less optimistic about the postwar performance of the Iraqi police, the problems faced now might have been substantially reduced.
If Saddam Hussein's army had stood and fought instead of melting away, more of the bitter-end resisters of the occupation would have been killed.
Yes, and as the old saying goes, "If 'ifs' and 'buts' were candies and nuts, we'd all have a wonderful Christmas." The stark fact is that U.S. forces around the world are stretched thin by today's tempo of operations. What U.S. forces in Iraq need most are Iraqi forces to free U.S. forces to do what they are trained to do and do superbly.
Wolfowitz says that when U.S. soldiers guarding a hospital are killed by a hand grenade dropped from that building, one question is: Why are Americans being used to guard buildings? He has a robust — even Rumsfeldean — dislike of "highly trained American soldiers doing stationary guard duty." The proper use of U.S. troops is, he says, not to guard pipelines but to use "actionable intelligence and pursue killers."
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referring to Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the forces in Iraq, says, "If he wants more troops, he can have more troops." Often when asked if he needs more, Abizaid has said, "There's a lot of things that we need." But he also says: The number of "boots per square inch" is not the issue. The issue is intelligence that maximizes the efficacy of the troops there. Furthermore, Abizaid says, "There's a downside where you increase your lines of communication, you increase ... the energy that you have to expend just to guard yourself."
Still, the elemental problem is that decades of Baathist rule crippled Iraq's infrastructure — Myers visited a Baghdad hospital unimproved in half a century — and reduced Iraq's population to a dust of individuals, unpracticed in individual initiative and social cooperation.
Abizaid briskly defines the modest, nuts-and-bolts but potentially
momentous development that must happen soon: "We've got to do a lot more
to bring an Iraqi face" — beyond the nearly 60,000 Iraqis already under
arms in reconstituted security forces — "to the security establishments
throughout Iraq very quickly." As Wolfowitz says, the basic U.S. strategy
is to "get us into the background before we become the issue."
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