Bush to America: Eat Shit and Die!

While I was in Columbus working on the campaign, I took an evening off to visit my daughter at Kenyon College. After dinner, I went back to her room to check my e-mail. As I was about to leave, one of her friends revealed that she was probably going to vote for Bush.

Now, my first instinct when someone intelligent tells me they're going to vote for Bush is to tell them to "Eat Shit and Die, sucker."

But a patient man am I, down to my fingertips, the sort who never could, ever would, let an insulting remark escape his lips. Instead, I calmly asked her why she was voting for Bush. She explained, first, that she really liked Ronald Reagan (this from a woman who was born in 1986.) Second, she said that she believed in small government.

Well, it turns out that I should have gone with my first instinct:

The Environmental Protection Agency is close to issuing new guidelines making it easier for sewage authorities to dump partially treated wastewater during heavy rainfalls, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

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Nancy Stoner, who runs the Natural Resources Defense Council's clean water project, said the new policy "means more people will get sick and more people will die. This is really a very significant issue from a public health standpoint."

Joan B. Rose, a water pollution microbiologist at Michigan State University, said the EPA's proposal ignores scientific findings that link wastewater to the spread of disease, adding that the Clean Water Act does not cover many unhealthful viruses and parasites.

"Sewage is the source of a lot of major pathogens," Rose said, adding that one study found the risk of disease from blended waste was 100 times greater than that associated with fully treated waste.

The EPA estimates swimmers experience 3,500 to 5,500 cases of "highly credible gastrointestinal illness" each year because of improper sewage treatment.

And why is EPA considering rolling back these regulations? Beause upgrading municipal wastewater treatment plants will cost too much and municipalities don't have the money. And why don't they have the money? Tax cuts. Why tax cuts? Because Republicans believe in "smaller government" and tax cuts are the best way to "starve the beast." Why smaller government? Because George Bush and his business supporters want less regulation.

But they've convinced many naive people that "small government" means saving hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being wasted on lazy bureaucrats and wasteful government programs. When actually, small government (EPA style) means that more people are going to eat shit and die.

Is this what people thought they were voting for on November 2?