10 Ways Bush has hurt New York

The 2004 Republican National Convention will be held in New York City this year. New York is a predominantly Democratic state, and New York City is a predominantly Democratic city. (Pataki and Bloomberg notwithstanding). Now, this piece from The Village Voice is somewhat more City-specific, rather than state-specific, but any upstater can tell you that politically and economically, what happens in NYC does have a palpable effect statewide. So here, ladies and gentlemen, are the 10 ways Bush has hurt NYC in particular, and NYS in general. Click the link to the piece for more details. 1. Will any convention speaker dare mention the name of Osama bin Laden? What ever happened to Bush's cowboy threat to "smoke 'em" out? 2. Why was Bush so afraid of a 9-11 investigation? 3. Was the Bush team awake in the nine months before the attack? 4. Iraq plus tax cuts adds up to a deficit that will force a second-term squeeze on social programs vital to NYC. 5. Bush did OK on the $20 billion, but he's still shortchanging us on the edges of the minimal pledge he made to a city whose economy took an $80 billion hit. 6. Senator Schumer says NY doesn't expect a share of Idaho's farm subsidies, so why does Idaho take a chunk of NY's security subsidies? 7. What could be worse than lying to GZ workers and residents about the air they were breathing?

The original EPA draft of a September 13, 2001, press release, for example, said that the agency considered even the low levels of asbestos that surfaced in their GZ tests "hazardous in this situation." The final White House version of the release simply scratched out the phrase. And when a September 16 EPA draft warned of "higher levels of asbestos," the White House changed it to the hot-air hoax that "ambient air quality meets standards and is not a cause for public concern." The EPA chief of staff conceded in an interview with the agency's inspector general that the "desire to reopen Wall Street" factored into the releases, saying she did not feel the releases were her own.

8. Bush has left most New York children behind. 9. Ten thousand NY families are in jeopardy of losing their housing subsidies and homes. 10. With NYC the No. 1 target of bio and nuclear terrorists, the go-it-alone Bush administration has torpedoed international treaties that would make us more secure.