Bush accomplishes little while in office
Term so far has amounted to long vacations, bad policy-making decisions

By Hemi Ahluwalia

It has been almost 100 days since George W. Bush took office as our 44th president. So what has he accomplished since that time?
Well not much of anything.

Bush sent his proposed budget for 2002 to Congress Monday. That sounds good, but the problem is it was almost two months late.

Most presidents send their budget to Congress by mid-February. This gives the appropriate time period for the House and Senate to go over it. But in Bush’s case, his cabinet needed extra time to get situated in the office and learn the full complexities of the budget. (Note that I used the word cabinet and not Bush ... he still is learning how to spend his paycheck.)

However, the Bush administration did not leave Congress high and dry in February. They did send over a blueprint of the budget in late February. Only the blueprint wasn’t detailed, and it was only 207 pages. It didn’t even give any indications of what programs the administration planned on keeping or cutting.

Now I realize Bush is not big on words, but it would be nice if every now and then he would let us know what he was planning on doing, if anything.

Recently the administration also announced that the president would no longer hold any formal press conferences, but instead the White House would send out a press release. I guess that is one way of making sure that he doesn’t do anything stupid.

So what else has the president not done since his days in office?

He said that he would not get involved in the energy crisis in California and that it was up to them to deal with the problem. Good for him. Why should we waste our time trying to supply energy to a state that is just going to fall off the face of the Earth soon? Give me a break, it is obvious they need some help. Of course, the only reason he won’t do anything is because he is still mad that California went to Gore.

And what about the environment?

Well I guess he did do one thing for the environment. He cut $500 million from the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget. Way to go. Oh, I forgot, he doesn’t think there is a problem with our environment.

All I have to say to him is we are losing our ozone layer, deadly chemicals are seeping into our drinking water supply and if we are not careful, we are going to destroy all of our rain forests, and there will not be any fresh air to breath. But then again, maybe that is too much for him to handle all at once.

But the most disappointing aspect of Bush’s presidency so far would have to be the way he has handled the conflict in China. It has been more than a week and 24 members of our Navy personnel are still being held hostage. Well Bush did do one thing. He held a conference and said he was sorry the Chinese pilot died.

Guess what? That wasn’t enough.

This man is the President of the United States, and while we still have American soldiers being “aggressively” interrogated in another country, he is out throwing the first pitch at a Milwaukee baseball game. And after that he went to spend the weekend at his Crawford ranch, where he goes at least twice a month to take a vacation.

I hope he sleeps well while there are 24 families in the United States waiting for their loved ones to come back home.

Almost 100 days have passed since a new president took over our country, and little progress has come out of it. But this should come as no surprise to anyone. Bush was quoted as saying in a Reader’s Digest article during the election as saying he does not see his future job as the president but instead as a CEO of a company, and CEOs take vacations.

Enjoy the sun, and I hope you don’t get skin cancer from the lack of ozone.

Hemi Ahluwalia is a junior broadcast journalism major from Stephenville.
She can be reached at (h.ahluwalia@student.tcu.edu).

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