They're at the top of my list.
GW is playing a complicated political game.
We went into Iraq to secure the second largest oil reserve in the world because we need the oil for our economic recovery. We will reap the benefits instead of the French, Germans and Russians.
As long as oil is $30/bbl our economy will remain stagnated.
GW will do it the same way that Ronald Reagan did it.
The tax cuts are cosmetic. The real answer is dropping the price of energy.
Ronald Reagan did it in 1985 when he convinced the Saudis to open the taps and lower the price of oil to $11./bb, and he destroyed the "Evil Empire" in the process.
Saudi doesn't have the power it did in 1985. OPEC will never allow the price of oil to get that low again; therefore, we had to have another source of plentiful oil - Iraq.
We're sitting on it, and we will produce it as fast as possible.
At the same time GW realizes that the economy may not turn around in time to assure him the election in 2004; hence, the pandering to the Hispanic vote and the acceptance of hundreds of thousands of illegals who are flooding this country.
In doing so he has the side benefit of millions of dollars of campaign funds from the mega corporations who depend on cheap labor.
I had no idea that this oil price business was not common knowledge. I mean, what do people fight over? What they don't want? Give me a break.
That is my thinking also however I will allow that our leaders have a fundamental belief that a tyrant should not be permitted to brutally control and abuse an entire population. Admittedly though it is a lot easier to turn a blind eye to Rawanda and other non essential places. The point is if gasoline and diesel and home heating oil drops by 40% in the US that then is the best tax cut W could ever give us, and Congress cant vote on it to screw it up.....