HOW TO GET A PAY RAISE
If you're lucky enough to be a soldier in these exciting times, then you'll soon be enjoying a 4.1% pay raise, courtesy of your most eminent patron, George Bush. Bush authorized this raise on December 8, 2002. Meanwhile, mired in war preparations, neither he nor Congress could come to any agreement on the extension of unemployment benefits for non-military American workers. The benefits of these lazy, unpatriotic slackers expired a few days after Christmas.

Unless, I'm reading the figures incorrectly (here, here, and here), about 8 million Americans are unemployed (of whom 750,000 lost their federal benefits on December 28), and the U.S. military touts about 1.4 million active military, 1.3 million ready/standby reserves, and 700,000 civilians. I have no clue if the pay raise extends to all of these groups, or only to active personnel.

What is Bush's message? You good-for-nothing leeches on the US economy who purport to be out of work should just join the military. That's where the money's being made.