Why Isn't Bush's Ranch Called "His Multi-Million Dollar Ranch?"

[DrFunkenstein]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney released their financial disclosure forms for 2003, offering two illustrations of what the portfolios of the well-to-do look like.

Bush's 633-hectare Texas ranch is valued at $1-million to $5-million and he has U.S. Treasury notes valued at $5-million to $8.7-million. The president also has certificates of deposits with banks around the country valued at $600,000 to $1.25-million.

http://www.rense.com/general53/pers.htm

Why the hell isn't this in the Democratic talking points? Everytime the GOP mentions Kerry's money, or tries to call Bush a "man of the people," this should be promptly whipped out. It's not his ranch, it's his millionaire's ranch.





While the administration is often criticized for its environmental record, the Bushes are practicing "greenies" on the ranch. They recycle rain runoff and waste water, and have a geothermal heating system.

Although Bush can't claim to have Crawford roots like his neighbors, he has a considerable amount in common with them. He shares their values of faith and family. It's also a dry town - Bush drinks no alcohol.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0814/p1s3-uspo.html

In the interview, the daughters disclosed that they like to drink soy lattes at Starbucks and eat at sushi restaurants.

However, they made the papers in 2001 after being caught drinking alcohol when they were still under 21, the legal drinking age.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1503&ncid=696&e=4&u=/afp/20040715/ts_afp/us_vote_bush_daughters

Hey, it wasn't like I didn't have a drink before my 21st birthday, and even Bush was known to enjoy the taste of the bottle, if you know what I mean.

But if it was disclosed that Kerry drank soy lattes from his geothermal multimillion dollar home, whoa boy!



Would you look at those wine-swilling cheese monkeys in their millionaire house. Damn liberal elite.

[aquart]

1. Don't forget his $5,000 suits.

[Warpy]

2. Same reason the photos of it are all from the same angle

..making it look like a modest little house tucked into the Texas scrub instead of the 10,000 square foot mansion it really is, swimming pool, tennis courts, multiple outbuildings, and all.

It's amazing what a cherrypicked camera angle will do. You see none of this stuff in the few pictures that have been released, just a carefully cropped entrance shot with large shrubs on either side, tin roof above.

[DrFunkenstein]

5. Not Easy To Find

Bush's eco-friendly geothermal limestone ranch - worth: $1-million to $5-million.

A ranch fit for a sultan.

---

President Bush says he is going to appoint a coordinator to "ride herd" Middle East leaders along the peace trail. You would be forgiven for not understanding what he meant. Its meaning most likely eluded the leaders from the Middle East who he was meeting.

President Bush clearly loves that cowboy imagery. It's straight from his home state of Texas and he is comfortable with it.

In Texas, to ride herd means that a cowboy on horseback keeps the cattle in line by cracking the whip, whistling and lasso-ing the odd stray.

"He probably didn't mean it but his metaphor is tinged with being slightly patronising. Translated literally, it means that he will want things to go in the direction he wants them to go."

Cowboy imagery is quite central to Mr Bush's presidential persona. He holds crucial policy talks at his ranch in Crawford.

"People who like Mr Bush love the imagery and rhetoric," he says. "It is populist, down to Earth."

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2968176.stm



Net value: $1-million to $5-million.

[lanparty]

21. Equi-phobic COWBOY !!!!

We need a song.

"Chicken Hawk Cowboy", "Lilly Livered Cowboy".

He doesn't ride horses. Bush is AFRAID of horses.

[PsN2Wind]

3. Correction,

"Millionaire HOBBY ranch"

[Ready4Change]

4. 1-5 million? Why so vague?

I felt the same about their reported worth? What's with the vagueness of these numbers. I can't claim my house is worth 50,000 - 300,000 dollars regarding my property taxes!

[DrFunkenstein]

6. It's Only A Few Million

It's not like it's the national debt of something.

WASHINGTON - This year's federal deficit will soar to a record $445 billion, the White House projected Friday in a report provoking immediate election-season tussling over how well President Bush has handled the economy.

The administration's annual summertime budget update forecast shortfalls falling to $331 billion next year, then fading to $229 billion by 2009. For each year, the red ink was smaller than the White House envisioned six months ago.

Administration officials hailed the budget figures as a solid improvement over the deficits analysts forecast early this year, and said they were on their way to their goal of halving this year's shortfall in five years. The White House estimated a $521 billion budget gap for 2004 in February, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a $477 billion deficit.

Democrats contrasted the $445 billion projection with the $262 billion surplus for this year that Bush projected in 2001, when he was persuading Congress to approve the first of his tax cuts.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&e=10&u=/ap/budget_deficit

C'mon, what's a few hundred billion between friends? I'm sure our kids will pay it off, just like their credit cards and student loans.

[lanparty]

22. Democratic commercials ...

We need some commercials of Bush talking about how we can ...

"Cut taxes, increase spending AND maintain a surplus".

Remember, they had predicted surpluses as far as the eye could see. In their models, tax cuts for the wealthy produce revenue growths. They base that in the early eighties when revenue's grew after upper class income taxes were lowered.

Of course, this is like saying the sun came after I took a piss. Therefore, my urination causes the sun to rise. There was a FICA tax increase that caused revenues to rise after they plummeted precipitously.

We need to HAMMER these jackholes with their credit card mentality into the ground with their predictions. We need commercials with the DIRE predictions in 1992 about Clintons tax increases on the wealthy preceeding the largest economic expansion in the history of this nation.

We need to GO ON THE ATTACK!!!!!

[notbush]

13. It's the way politicians HAVE TO report their wealth.

If you do a little research you will find that democrat and republican house members, filling out the form , will have a net worth that varies by large amounts.
Nobody really wants to tell us what they're worth. Both parties.
They aren't us.
You might find a couple of reps. with very small net worths......if they keep getting elected.....it won't be that way for long.

[JayS]

17. The value of his ranch varies greatly depending on how...

...much brush is on it. :)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

7. Multi-million dollar ranch-style mansion

would be more accurate.

[sandnsea]

8. I like hobby ranch

You know all about hobby ranchers. Or maybe a Woody Harrelson eco-ranch. Isn't that sort of display of income still considered tacky in Montana?

[Retrograde]

9. Marie Antoinette had one of those

late queen of France had a little toy farm at Versailles where she could get away from the rigors of court life and play at milking cows.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. Personally I prefer hobby ranchers

to people who subdivide...

[DrFunkenstein]

11. Does Anyone Know If There's A Golf Course On The Ranch?

Where does he play when he's on summer vacation?

[LibDemAlways]

12. The media whores always conveniently forget

that Teresa Heinz Kerry's fortune comes from her late Republican husband. The money only apparently became "bad" after she married a Dem and later switched her party affiliation.

And you are absolutely right. The corporate media goes along with the ridiculous charade that the chimp's ranch is something out of "Little House on the Prairie" rather than "Dallas." What a crock.

[auburngrad82]

14. Ranch???

My understanding is that you have to have cattle/horses for it to be a ranch. It's more of an "estate".

[JayS]

18. I would define his "ranch" as more of an estate than anything...

...else. A ranch will have sheep, cattle, horses, ostriches, or some other specialty, or a mix of them. This will also allow you to get an agriculture exemption on your property; nice to have from a tax perspective. If the land was maintained as a nature conservatory, you might can get a conservation easement, but I am not sure of all the requirements of this but am looking into it for personal reasons.

[tomfodw]

15. The "SCLM" at work

Bush has a "ranch", Kerry an "estate". Bush pretends to be a regular guy, Kerry doesn't pretend at anything. Bush doesn't act in public, at least, like a multimillionaire. The press thinks their readers will more readily believe these fixed (mis)impressions and that it therefore would not be worth any effort to correct them.

We have the laziest journalists in my memory (which goes back to the early 1960s). The right-wingers have an agenda, and almost everyone else simply goes along with it because they just can't be assed enough to think for themselves. Or, when they do have the momentary guts and initiative to counter the prevailing nonsense, the right-wing badger machine goes after them with such vitriol, they never dare attach their gelded balls again.

[jpgray]

16. He also bought it in 1999, and you know our press hates phonies

:crazy:

[A_Possum]

19. Is there even a cow on the place?

It's not a ranch, you don't call it a ranch unless you're a clueless goat-roper. It's a farm. My family has a "ranch" in Midland, and a "farm" south of Dallas. Been in Dallas County since 1860's, been in Midland County since 1890's. Bush is no Texan. My grandparents and great-grandparents ate dust and homesteaded, my great-great-grandfather made my great-aunts live in tarpaper shacks for the 6 months out of a year that was required to homestead a section (one square mile--what's this "hectares" stuff?). My grandmother, aunts and uncles scraped through raising cattle and farming cotton, good years and bad. My uncle drank, yeah, too much--but he was also a cowboy, a real one, until he died. He used to break horses by just getting on them and riding them as fast as they'd go until they stopped. I hear Bush is afraid of horses. Sure never seen him get up on one.

The land was everything. I was brought up to believe the land was everything. You hang on to it, you never let the land go.

Bush stole another Texas family's land in Arlington by imminent domain, using taxpayers' money, and then turned around and bought out =another= family in Crawford with his ill-gotten gains. When a real farming/ranching family gets hit with inheritance taxes, they don't have the cash to pay w/o selling out, and they don't have the money to pay for lawyers to protect their interests, so speculators and outsiders like Bush clean up.

This was the first thing I learned about Bush that made me want to spit on him. Lazy, incompetent, drunk frat boy steals from good people who worked the land, and now prances around "cutting brush." Makes me want to :puke:

[yellowcanine]

20. It is an estate - not a ranch. Lots of land does not a ranch make.

.