In a few tough and true words

Bob Herbert in his column in today's New York Times:

"Mr. Bush is the standard-bearer par excellence of his party's efforts to redistribute the bounty of the U.S. from the bottom up, not the other way around. This is no longer a matter of dispute. Mr.Bush may not be the greatest commander in chief. And he may not be adept at sidestepping the land mines of language. ('I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here.') But if there's one thing the president has been good at, it has been funneling money to the rich. The suffering wrought by Katrina hasn't changed that at all.

"One of the first things the president did in the aftermath of Katrina was to poke his finger in the eyes of struggling workers by suspending the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act in the storm-ravaged areas. Passed during the Great Depression, the law requires contractors on federally funded construction projects to pay at least the prevailing wage in the region.

"This is one more way of taking money from the working poor and handing it to the wealthy."