During Bush's first term, I interviewed one of my heroes, Jim Hightower. (I was born in the same small Texas town as Hightower, which, for the sole benefit of my favorite blog barnacles, is full of… wait for it… Southern Baptist fundamentalists!) At any rate–his book from back then had a list of the odious details of Bush administration wrongdoing. It was mind-numbing, and filled up a stunning number of pages. It catalogued all the little ways in which Bush had then expressed his love for open government and protection of American citizens, stuff like loosening safety rules, increasing the allowed levels of pollution, tiny changes in the Federal Register with awful implications.
But even that list has been eclipsed by the just-released study from the Center for Public Integrity called Broken Government.
Here, from their website, is a small sampling of the larger list:
• 60 percent of EPA scientists report political interference with their work
• 1,273 whistleblower complaints filed from 2002-2008; 1,256 were dismissed
• 190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons missing in Iraq
• $212.3 million in overcharges by Halliburton for Iraq oil reconstruction work
• $9.91 billion for government secrecy in 2007 — a record
• 809 government laptops with sensitive information lost by FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
• 30 million pounds of beef recalled in 2007
• 2,145 troops killed and 21,000 injured in Iraq from March 2003 through November 1, 2008, by IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and other explosives — many while awaiting body armor. Additionally, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the conflict
• 34.8 percent of oil used in America imported during Nixon administration; 42.2 percent during first Gulf War; 59.9 percent in 2006
• $100 million for failed FBI computer network
• $100 billion in federal tax revenues lost annually to corporations using off-shore tax shelters
• 2.5 million toxic toys recalled in summer of 2007
• $12.5 billion for defective National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System
• $4 billion to upgrade National Security Agency computers that often crash, have trouble talking to each other, and lose key intelligence
• 60,000 flights made by 46 Southwest Airline jets in violation of FAA safety directives due to lax FAA enforcement
• 12.8 percent job turnover at Department of Homeland Security in 2006 — double that of any other cabinet-level agency
• 730,000 backlogged patent applications
• 60,000 newborns a year at risk for neurological problems due to mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants
• Two-thirds fewer clean ups of EPA Superfund toxic waste sites during 2001-2006 than in previous six years
• 935 demonstrably false statements in lead-up to Iraq war by President Bush and seven members of his administration
• At least $500 million for FEMA trailers contaminated by formaldehyde occupied by thousands displaced after Hurricane Katrina
• 26 percent of corporations holding at least $250 million in assets audited in 2006; percent audited in 1990: more than 70 percent. IRS audit staff slashed by 30 percent
• $431.5 billion spent on Medicare in 2007, double amount in 2001
• 47 dead in mining accidents in 2006 blamed on lax oversight
• $9 billion in federal oil and gas royalties mismanaged by agency linked to drug-and-sex scandal
• 275 largest U.S. corporations pay, on average, about 17 percent in taxes in 2007, half the standard corporate tax rate
• $45 trillion in credit-default swaps, without federal oversight, in 2007
• 760,800 disability claims backlogged, awaiting hearings at Social Security Administration as of October 2008
• 806,000 Veterans Affairs disability claims in 2006, up 39 percent since 2000; backlog reached 400,000 claims by February 2007
• 2,640 days Osama bin Laden at large since September 11, 2001 (as of December 10, 2008)
