Bush's gamble with power

In his first week in office, President Bush has exceeded even the dimmest expectations. Just consider: His first act was restricting abortion, some priority!

His second act was to tell California that it is on its own in solving the massive power crisis. Ironically, in doing so, Bush has all but performed a late-term abortion on his chances of winning California in any re-election bid he may mount in 2004.

Even to the most objective observer, it would seem blatantly clear that Bush's nonchalance attitude towards California's crisis has a lot more to do with personal politics than personal convictions on deregulation of the energy industry. Clearly, Bush is desperate to gain support for his $ 1.3 trillion income tax cut proposal. The only way to get public support for the program, which

heavily favors the more wealthy taxpayers, is to create a climate of economic weakness and uncertainty.

For weeks, Bush has been down-talking the US economy. Now, California has handed Bush a golden opportunity to really put a dent in the economy. A few more power outages and the California economy will have nowhere to go but into a slump. Last week's two days of rolling black-outs cost the state's economy an estimated $ 1.3 billion.

Because it is so vast, the California economy (the sixth largest in the world), would quickly pull the rest of the US economy down with it. Bush appears to be gambling that his massive tax cut will subsequently pull the economy out of any kind of mild recession, allowing him to claim credit and paving the road towards a second term in office.

As a nice side effect to it all, Bush and Cheney's friends in the energy industry will be getting a nice return on the $ 27 million they donated to Bush's campaign. They stand to make a killing as energy prices soar across the US, following the expected energy price hikes that face Californians, no matter what the outcome of the current crisis.

Thank you Florida.

(SVNS)