Progress Now Action

President Bush and Colorado Gov. Owens should come clean and show their cards, regarding their history of heaping economic misery upon unsuspecting black folks. Bush routinely touts 4.9% national unemployment as a major accomplishment for his administration. He fails however, to tell that unemployment amongst blacks in Denver is 15%, 30% in New Orleans, and 50% in some NYC boroughs. Bush also isn't aware that 60,000 jobs that GM and Ford intend to eliminate will hit blacks the hardest. Bush's INS guest workers program is another one of his looney-tune and snake oil economic ideas. With the staggering rates of unemployment among blacks, Adam Smith (godfather of economics), would probably say we don't need a guest worker program until our unemployment rate is 0%. The GOP's guest workers program real intention is a tool to bust organized labor unions, drive down wages and benefits for American workers, and to illegally displace more qualified American workers with illegal immigrants who will work for a song and dance.

Bush lied 7 months ago when he told the membership of the Black Expo, that black owned businesses were getting their fair share of federal government contracts. Owens is Bush designated henchman for keeping blacks from getting those plum federal government contracts. The federal government has invested nearly $7 billion in Colorado's T-REX (I-25/I-225 highway construction/lightrail), Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority, and Fas Tracks federal projects. Owens has turned these projects into cash-cows for the GOP at the expense of black owned business and black disabled Vietnam/Iraq-NAM/Afghanistan military veterans. Black disabled military veterans have employment and contracting preferences in these projects, as required by US Senate appropriations and Bush's own executive order of a 3% contracting set-aside for disabled military veterans. All of these federal contracting, procurement, and hiring rules are being ignored by Owens/Bush. In the aggregate, across all racial lines, all of Colorado's 300,000 military veterans are being denied their federal job and contracting preferences by both Bush/Owens.

I am starting to believe that Bush has placed the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and NAACP on the GOP's payroll, much like he did with Armstrong Williams and Bishop TD Jakes. The NAACP and CBC has turned a deaf ear to fact Bush/Owens is denying federal contracts and jobs. Locally in Colorado it is true, and on a larger scale in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, whites are getting the lions share of repair contracts. It defies reasoning that Vietnam draft-dodgers like Ashcroft and Guiliani are getting federal contracts that were intended by the US Senate for disabled military veterans.

40 years ago, Bush/Owens had a "rule of law" requirement to show how much they cared for veterans and active duty military folks. Both of them were drafted for induction into the US Army. Bush/Owens collectively turned a deaf ear to America's call, and these two Texas cowpokes cut and ran, and sought personal sanctuary on Draftback Mountain.