To the editor:

With its massive bureaucracy and the gutting of our constitutional rights, President Bush’s plan for homeland security does nothing to address the real threats to our nation.

The Bush plan does not decrease our dependency on Middle East energy. It ignores increasing the consumption of renewable energy sources (like wind and solar) through tax breaks for consumers and utilities. Instead, Bush would rely on military intervention and Pearl Harbor-like “pre-emptive strikes” against nations we are not at war with to protect the oilfields at great expense to the U.S. taxpayer.

And, even as the Bush EPA’s recent report announced global warming was a fact, the Bush security plan will not protect Earth’s ozone layer and the American population from the health hazards posed by greenhouse gasses. The report says that gas, oil, coal, and the gases they produce, will threaten the country (rising seas, diminished water supplies, disappearing mountain meadows and coral reefs, rising cancer rates).

The Bush plan calls for massive spending on weapons and surveillance, both foreign and domestic. This will rapidly increase the national debt, undermining our economy and American jobs. Bush’s plan would shift the responsibility for this debt to a future generation of Americans, impoverishing them for our actions today.

Finally, the Bush plan will not make our work force more competitive on the global stage, protect our food supply, or care for our elderly.

Sadly, the Bush plan will not solve these very real threats to homeland security.

Donald Phipps,

Lawrence