Sen. Olympia Snowe yet again showed herself to be a willing tool of the criminally incompetent Bush Administration when she voted, at the administration’s request, to raise the federal debt ceiling (for the fifth time under Bush) to almost $9 trillion.

Under this law, the Bush government will borrow another $700 billion, principally from our best creditor, Communist China, and immediately transfer that borrowed money to big Republican donors through huge tax breaks for the very rich; to big oil companies through federal subsidies and giveaways of federal lands; and to big defense (no-bid) contractors such as Halliburton and other administration crony corporations through the morally and financially ruinous wars in the Middle East.

Every Democratic senator, the only independent, and three brave Republicans voted against this irresponsible legislation; but not Olympia Snowe. She and Susan Collins voted in favor of saddling every American man, woman and child with what amounts to an average debt of $30,000 per person.

This is on top of Snowe’s recent action when, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee – which is supposed to oversee government intelligence operations, she co-sponsored legislation that would prevent any investigation of Bush’s illegal secret domestic spying program, and that would retroactively legalize the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

The Bush Administration will never be held accountable for its criminal incompetence until Republicans no longer control Congress and Bush-enablers such as Olympia Snowe are voted out of office.

Jeffrey Rosenblatt, Albany Township