How the Bush Administration Ran the Country Into the Ground

[ProSense]

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

How the Bush Administration Ran the Country Into the Ground

JB

This stunning image from a New York Times story on the deficit speaks volumes about how truly reckless the Bush Administration was, aided by a Republican majority in Congress, in running the country.



The war in Iraq and accompanying defense spending, plus the badly designed Medicare Drug benefit, plus the Bush tax cuts, plus lax regulation of financial institutions (which necessitated a bailout supported by both President Bush and President Obama) turned a projected surplus under Bill Clinton into an enormous deficit and a relatively well-run nation into country burdened with enormous problems.

It would be one thing if these expenditures were a matter of national necessity that ultimately made the country better off. But they were not. The Bush tax cuts were primarily targeted to benefit the wealthiest Americans, and exacerbated a growing inequality of wealth in the United States. The Iraq War was a war of choice, justified by false claims of weapons of mass destruction and insinuations of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It proved to be a foreign policy disaster and an enormous waste of money which we must still shoulder. Deregulatory financial policies were unwise and unsound and helped push us toward the current Great Recession.

All in all, it is one of the most remarkable displays of ineptitude, greed, and corruption in American history. And now that they have run the country into the ground, President Bush's party, now thankfully out of power, is blaming the party that succeeded them, the Democrats, for the baleful effects of deficit spending. Colossal ineptitude is being followed by equally colossal chutzpah.

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If I had to think back to a key moment in American history when everything went wrong, I would have to point to the moment of George W. Bush's selection as President in 2000. It put an incompetent in the White House (George W. Bush), assisted by a mentally unhinged lieutenant (Dick Cheney), and aided and abetted by a self-righteous and corrupt Republican-controlled Congress led by the likes of Tom Delay. What a noxious combination of incompetence, arrogance, hubris, and ideological zeal!

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[napoleon_in_rags]

1. Off to the Greatest page, and the inboxes of my conservative friends...

:)

[Cha]

2. Thank you, PS..and as Jim Cornette

says.."The republicans drove the country into the ditch and complain about the cost of the tow truck".

[ProSense]

3. Rove in denial

Rove: Bush Administration Has ‘No’ Responsibility For Current Budget Deficits

He should be in jail.

[Deja Q]

4. Total denial; every political show was covering Bush's song and dance every week...

[uponit7771]

5. THANK YOU!!! Most don't know the depth of how the Bush admin screwed this country

[OnyxCollie]

6. Kicked. nt