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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. The art of a few beers with a friend by J. G. Fabiano I don’t know how most of America is feeling about this year’s Presidential election but most of the people I hang around with are basically disgusted about how the issues and the problems we all face are being covered up by a swift boat here and a lost National Guard duty there. Our entire election process seems to be mired in some sort of one giant spin. I don’t care if you are a Republican, Democrat, or a member of any fringe political party, the real problems facing our communities and our nation are basically being ignored. After having a bit of a heated discussion with some of my friends over a few beers I decided to check up on some issues by digging up information on the Internet through some of the many government services. The one thing I do know about the election is our present President is proud to tell us he is holding the course on both domestic and foreign issues. His competitor is more difficult to understand because he has changed his mind on many issues and his position is far from clear. So basically I came to the conclusion if you like where our nation is heading vote for the incumbent President and if you want a change, even though we have little clue as to what that change is, vote for the challenger. Since I realize any national economic issue has direct effect on all of us I looked up some information at the Congressional Budget Office and compared some numbers from when George W. Bush took office until the present, which is August of 2004. These were the most recent figures I could find. The federal surplus when our President came to office was $5.6 trillion projected over ten years. Damn, I don’t even know how to write a trillion dollars! The federal deficit under the present administration now stands at $2.3 trillion projected through 2011. The present 2004 deficit now stands at $450 billion. I also found a statement from the U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, a former Reagan administration official, who is now a non-partisan auditor appointed to a 15-year term. He states, "Our projected budget deficits are not manageable without significant changes [in taxes or spending]. We simply cannot grow our way out of this problem." There are obviously many reasons why our economy seems to be spiraling out of control. One of these is the September 11th attacks. But, I have to wonder how many more years this terrorist attack on our nation will be used as an excuse as to why our economy continues to go into debt. I found another little titbit of information that calculated our current U.S. debt to the penny. As of August, 2004, it was: $7,298,671,067,464.27. I don’t have a clue as to how to read a number of this size. The next government office I checked was the Internal Revenue Service. At the time the most recent year for which data was available was 2002. I came up with some startling information of which I came to the conclusion that my time at college studying science was basically wasted. I should have concentrated on the possibility of one day becoming a CEO of a major company. I found out that the average income growth from 2000 – 2002 was a minus 5.7%. The statistics go on to explain the average income growth from 2000 – 2002, adjusted for inflation was a minus 9.2%. I guess this was not that surprising because all one had to do was see the numbers on their pay checks to realize this was true. Attempting to dig up further information showed this was the first time Americans’ overall income shrank for two consecutive years since the current tax system was put in place during World War II. The Bureau of Labor Statistics through Business Week showed that the hourly wage growth for production, non-supervisory workers in 2003 was 0.6%. It went on to explain that 80% of the work force that are blue-collar workers in manufacturing are non-managers. When you take into account inflation the average income growth literally drops 9.2%. By the way the CEO pay growth in 2003 was a whopping 27%. An interesting little statistic shows the ratio of CEO to worker pay in 1982 was 42 to 1. The ratio of CEO to worker pay in 2003 was 300 to 1. Can you now see why I believe I wasted my time during my college years? Even though my eyes started to water a bit from looking at my magic computer screen I found myself becoming intrigued with the facts and figures of the past four years instead of being inundated with sound bites about things that happened to our present candidates over 30 years ago. Looking through the Bureau of Labor Statistics I found the number of jobs lost since George W. Bush took office was 1.2 million. Remember in 2000 the number of jobs promised to come from our President’s tax cuts was 5.5 million. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out the difference in his projection to what the reality of today is. I found out since the recession began 40 months ago in March 2001, the 0.9% contraction in the job market represents the greatest sustained job loss since the Great Depression. I also discovered the number of jobs created during the Clinton administration was 21 million. No wonder most of the world wanted to take Clinton in during the possibility of his successful impeachment. The unemployment rate has always confused me. On the one hand I am told by the challenger the number of people unemployed or underemployed is high. Yet, the statistics show the unemployment rate as of August of 2004, is holding steady at 5.6%. In fact, it has held this steady number since the recovery began in November 2001. There is another statistic few people, including me, have heard about. It is called the underemployment rate. Underemployment means involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, and other workers who have looked for work in the last year but are not counted as unemployed. Looking at these statistics as of August of 2004, the underemployment rate is 9.6%. The underemployment rate when the recovery began was 9.4%. I then wandered into the Congressional Budget Office’s web page to attempt to find information about the war. I discovered the 2001 defense budget was $291 billion. The 2005 defense budget will be $447 billion. Actually this makes sense since we are at war. The question I and many like me have is how long we are going to be at war and with whom. The reason I bring this up is that as of September 17, 2004, the number of our troops killed in Iraq is 1028 with this number seemingly increasing every day. I am told a war produces death and that I should get over it. I don’t think I will ever be able to get over it. Looking through websites that include the Department of Defense, The Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count, and the a site entitled Iraqi Body count I discovered the estimated number of civilians killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan number 14,673. The number of U.S. military, according to Defense Department records that were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan through July, 2004 was 5,976. The number of U.S. military, according to United Press International, that were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan through July, 2004, was 11,700+. I have to wonder why there is such a difference in numbers. Staring into the monitor of my computer I knew I now had a choice. I could continue to investigate where George W. Bush is taking our people or I could go down to my living room, put on my television set, and listen to expert’s debate over medals and discharges that happened decades before. I think I will stay where I am and look into the job source issue, the social security and health care debates, education, taxes, civil liberties, and the environment. If my editor lets me continue I will pass on this information to my readers. If not I will pass this information on to my neighbors. But, first I may just give Kennebunkport a call and see if there is anyone there who wants to have a beer and some conversation with this man from Maine. THE END
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