Kirk Watson: “The Bush administration has demonstrated a complete failure to plan for our operations in Iraq and a complete failure to…”

“The Bush administration has demonstrated a complete failure to plan for our operations in Iraq and a complete failure to plan here at home. One has to ask, Are we better off than we were 4 years ago? When President Bush took office, we had a $236 billion budget surplus and the Nation had created 22 million jobs over the previous 8 years. The number of uninsured had decreased for the first time in 12 years, and the country had the lowest poverty rate in 20 years. Today, 8.2 million are Americans looking for work; 1.8 million private sector jobs have been lost. The number of uninsured has increased by 3.8 million, and gas prices are at a 23-year high. Household income has decreased by almost $1,500, and college tuition is up by 28 percent. This is absolutely not acceptable, and it is not something that just happened. President Bush had only one economic policy when he took office and he had only one today, tax cuts for those who need them least.”