Monday, January 18, 2010

Remember the Bush Administration?



I know that it's all of a year in the past, but I'm sorta getting irate at the way people forget all about the architects of our current problems and think that putting them back into repair-work is the way to go:

Of all the claims Rove made, one in particular caught my eye for its sheer audacity and shamelessness -- that congressional Democrats "will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years."

So, let's review a little history:

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

I'm not pleased with the way the health care reform is going, but my displeasure is very much associated with the bits the conservatives managed to get in (via that misplaced one-sided bipartisanism of the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress) and with the bits the insurance industry managed to get in. A Republican administration would not have even tried to reform health care! Why do people forget that?

And I very much doubt that the Republicans would have tried any kind of stimulus package, either, except for that old cut-taxes-for-the-rich bit.

I understand that people are angry at the economic situation but why on earth would they want those responsible for it back in power?