Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.
It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.
The Census' final report card on Bush's record
presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built
his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in
2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar
agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the
economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy
government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two
terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an
economic silver bullet.
Economists would cite
many reasons why presidential terms are an imperfect frame for tracking
economic trends. The business cycle doesn't always follow the electoral
cycle. A president's economic record is heavily influenced by factors
out of his control. Timing matters and so does good fortune.
But
few would argue that national economic policy is irrelevant to economic
outcomes. And rightly or wrongly, voters still judge presidents and
their parties largely by the economy's performance during their watch.
In that assessment, few measures do more than the Census data to answer
the threshold question of whether a president left the day to day
economic conditions of average Americans better than he found it.
If
that's the test, today's report shows that Bush flunked on every
relevant dimension-and not just because of the severe downturn that
began last year.
Consider first the median
income. When Bill Clinton left office after 2000, the median income-the
income line around which half of households come in above, and half
fall below-stood at $52,500 (measured in inflation-adjusted 2008
dollars). When Bush left office after 2008, the median income had
fallen to $50,303. That's a decline of 4.2 per cent.
That
leaves Bush with the dubious distinction of becoming the only president
in recent history to preside over an income decline through two
presidential terms, notes Lawrence Mishel, president of the
left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The median household income
increased during the two terms of Clinton (by 14 per cent, as we'll see
in more detail below), Ronald Reagan (8.1 per cent), and Richard Nixon
and Gerald Ford (3.9 per cent). As Mishel notes, although the global
recession decidedly deepened the hole-the percentage decline in the
median income from 2007 to 2008 is the largest single year fall on
record-average families were already worse off in 2007 than they were
in 2000, a remarkable result through an entire business expansion.
"What is phenomenal about the years under Bush is that through the
entire business cycle from 2000 through 2007, even before this
recession...working families were worse off at the end of the recovery,
in the best of times during that period, than they were in 2000 before
he took office," Mishel says.
Bush's record on poverty is
equally bleak. When Clinton left office in 2000, the Census counted
almost 31.6 million Americans living in poverty. When Bush left office
in 2008, the number of poor Americans had jumped to 39.8 million (the
largest number in absolute terms since 1960.) Under Bush, the number of
people in poverty increased by over 8.2 million, or 26.1 per cent. Over
two-thirds of that increase occurred before the economic collapse of
2008.
The trends were comparably daunting for
children in poverty. When Clinton left office nearly 11.6 million
children lived in poverty, according to the Census. When Bush left
office that number had swelled to just under 14.1 million, an increase
of more than 21 per cent.
The story is similar
again for access to health care. When Clinton left office, the number
of uninsured Americans stood at 38.4 million. By the time Bush left
office that number had grown to just over 46.3 million, an increase of
nearly 8 million or 20.6 per cent.
The trends
look the same when examining shares of the population that are poor or
uninsured, rather than the absolute numbers in those groups. When
Clinton left office in 2000 13.7 per cent of Americans were uninsured;
when Bush left that number stood at 15.4 per cent. (Under Bush, the
share of Americans who received health insurance through their employer
declined every year of his presidency-from 64.2 per cent in 2000 to
58.5 per cent in 2008.)
When Clinton left the
number of Americans in poverty stood at 11.3 per cent; when Bush left
that had increased to 13.2 per cent. The poverty rate for children
jumped from 16.2 per cent when Clinton left office to 19 per cent when
Bush stepped down.
Every one of those
measurements had moved in a positive direction under Clinton. The
median income increased from $46,603 when George H.W. Bush left office
in 1992 to $52,500 when Clinton left in 2000-an increase of 14 per
cent. The number of Americans in poverty declined from 38 million when
the elder Bush left office in 1992 to 31.6 million when Clinton stepped
down-a decline of 6.4 million or 16.9 per cent. Not since the go-go
years of the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations during
the 1960s, which coincided with the launch of the Great Society, had
the number of poor Americans declined as much over two presidential
terms.
The number of children in poverty
plummeted from 15.3 million when H.W. Bush left office in 1992 to 11.6
million when Clinton stepped down in 2000-a stunning decline of 24 per
cent. (That was partly because welfare reform forced single mothers
into the workforce at the precise moment they could take advantage of a
growing economy. The percentage of female-headed households in poverty
stunningly dropped from 39 per cent in 1992 to 28.5 per cent in 2000,
still the lowest level for that group the Census has ever recorded.
That number has now drifted back up to over 31 per cent.) The number of
Americans without health insurance remained essentially stable during
Clinton's tenure, declining from 38.6 million when the elder Bush
stepped down in 1992 to 38.4 million in 2000.
Looking
at the trends by shares of the population, rather than absolute
numbers, reinforces the story: The overall poverty rate and the poverty
rate among children both declined sharply under Clinton, and the share
of Americans without health insurance fell more modestly.
So the summary page on the economic experience of average Americans under the past two presidents would look like this:
Under Clinton, the median income increased 14 per cent. Under Bush it declined 4.2 per cent.
Under Clinton the total number of Americans in poverty declined 16.9 per cent; under Bush it increased 26.1 per cent.
Under Clinton the number of children in poverty declined 24.2 per cent; under Bush it increased by 21.4 per cent.
Under
Clinton, the number of Americans without health insurance, remained
essentially even (down six-tenths of one per cent); under Bush it
increased by 20.6 per cent.
Adding Ronald Reagan's record to the comparison fills in the picture from another angle.
Under
Reagan, the median income grew, in contrast to both Bush the younger
and Bush the elder. (The median income declined 3.2 per cent during the
elder Bush's single term.) When Reagan was done, the median income
stood at $47, 614 (again in constant 2008 dollars), 8.1 per cent higher
than when Jimmy Carter left office in 1980.
But
despite that income growth, both overall and childhood poverty were
higher when Reagan rode off into the sunset than when he arrived. The
number of poor Americans increased from 29.3 million in 1980 to 31.7
million in 1988, an increase of 8.4 per cent. The number of children in
poverty trended up from 11.5 million when Carter left to 12.5 million
when Reagan stepped down, a comparable increase of 7.9 per cent. The
total share of Americans in poverty didn't change over Reagan's eight
years (at 13 per cent), but the share of children in poverty actually
increased (from 18.3 to 19.5 per cent) despite the median income gains.
The past rarely settles debates about the future.
The
fact that the economy performed significantly better for average
families under Clinton than under the elder or younger Bush or Ronald
Reagan doesn't conclusively answer how the country should proceed now.
Obama isn't replicating the Clinton economic strategy (which increased
federal spending in areas like education and research much more
modestly, and placed greater emphasis on deficit reduction-to the point
of increasing taxes in his first term). Nor has anyone suggested that
it would make sense to reprise that approach in today's conditions. But
at the least, the wretched two-term record compiled by the younger Bush
on income, poverty and access to health care should compel Republicans
to answer a straightforward question: if tax cuts are truly the best
means to stimulate broadly shared prosperity, why did the Bush years
yield such disastrous results for American families on these core
measures of economic well being?
--National Journal researcher Cameron Joseph contributed.
These findings are impossible. Everyone knows that Republicans are better stewards of the economy than Democrats. 'Mericans know this in their gut! Their gut!
That's exactly where a lot of problems come from - using the gut instead of the brain. Author Charles P. Pierce sums this up very nicely in his book "Idiot America".
pineview something must be blocking your view, after what bush and his idiots did to "Merica" (according to you) any person with an ounce of common sense knows that republicans are the worse at managing anything bloody thing. the worse things took place in this country under little shrub, republicans are cursed and therefore, their are bad luck.
Looks to me like Pineview1997 is employing sarcasm, and is not really extolling the virtues of Republicans.
Made me laugh out loud. Thanks.
What an absolute fucking joke.
Median income excludes a significant portion of compensation, including health care benefits. Comparison of the welfare of families that ignore a significant percentage of the compensation they receive are spurious and misleading. Intentionally misleading, I might add, since this is well-trod ground.
The rest is just the worst sort of cherry picking. If one were to take, say, the 1998 statistics and compare them to, say, the 2006 statistics, we'd say that the Bush record is stronger than the Clinton record. Check the record--did Brownstein write an article in 2007 saying that the Bush record was better than the Clinton record? Why not? The evidence was there to see!
Why did Brownstein get so dumb in the intervening years?
If my employer paid health insurance premium doubles next year but my salary stays the same am I better off?
My employer tends to think so and even reports it as such. I don't see any more in my pay check.
So I assume you're a big supporter of health insurance reform?
Hi Katherine. I am a huge health insurance reform advocate...bigger than Obama is pressing for. I believe that models based on real world examples and experience over time could real help to inform good discussion and wise decisions. I would highly recommend Sweden in Europe, aspects of Canada and Massachusetts in our own nation.
I believe that the problem of a massively growing gap in disposible incomes from differ sectors in the US is a very serious problem, that this is directly connected to continued oil dependencies, the loss of work to foreign states, the lack of global corporations paying real taxes, to the serious problem of medical costs for all, and the inflation for products across the board at the grocery store. I think that for starters...all Congressial representatives in both Houses should lose all federally paid for medical care and have salaries capped for a decade. And I believe that instead of having bailed out Lehman Brothers and GM that the government should jump right into the business of producing several styles of high quality hybrid vehicles. But to show my moderation, I advocate the end to any immigration or and any foreign trade with any state that trades with Iran because I consider the Iranian government to be a fascist government.
I think Obama is much too nice and far too gentle on the Robber Barons Corporations who have raped and pillaged America and then try and call themselves patriots. I really do consider them traitors so, I am not happy voting for the political parties - either of them!
What would make you think that?
I do favor reform, as it happens, but that has nothing to do with whether Brownstein has chosen tendentious statistical methods intended simply to mislead and misinform.
Your right about the lack of specifics generated by some statistics. Like "median income". I don't have one: its sucked up by fat Republican corporados who own stock in corporations that are so global, they pay no taxes to America but damn sure except the US jobs that are transferred to them. And "health care benefits"...whad a sick little mind dreamed that up? I pay over $1000.00 a month for "benefits"...but I don't get ill, I just work. I must admit though I am tired of paying for the graft and corruption in our so-called democracy. I would like to run for office to spark some true debate and representation in Congress but shucks, that stuff is for millionaries isn't it.
I will say that in support of doing my part to reduce the going income disparity in America, if I do see George Bush or even his blood sucking buddy Cheney around my town, I will be more than pleased to kill them. Let's see...just a median velocity round would do!
Another one of those delightful and peace-loving liberals I've heard so much about. If only those on the right could model themselves after this guy.
They do.
Actually Bush's record up through 2007 wasn't that great, whether you look at poverty, the deficit, or job creation. Besides, as Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are. Live with it.
Well, look at poverty then. The poverty rate was 11.7% in 2001, 12.1 in 2002, 12.5 in 2003, 12.7 in 2004, 12.6 in 2005, 12.3 in 2006, and 12.5 in 2007. That is, every single year is either better than or no worse than every single year's performance from 1993 through 1998. What an impressive record!
You should watch less football and read a bit more.
You may be able to handle the truth (although I doubt it), but you certainly have a problem with numbers. Clinton started out with the poverty rate over 15% and worked it down every year. Bush started out with a low poverty rate and it inched higher almost every year (and skyrocketed in the last two years). Add to that the "recovery of 2003-2007 was among the weakest post-war recovery and you can see that Bush II's economic plans simply were awful, unless you were among the hyper-rich.
Please have patience. Our standard forms of data collection and calculation do not appear to support your ideology, so they are obviously in error. You should know, because you are one of the few who Handles the Truth!
I am sure many right wing think tanks are working on the problem at this moment, devising new data, new census categories, new histories, new forms of arithmetic that will prove the Truth: that the Bush doctrine of regressive taxation was successful after all.
As you know, the real problem is that the census bureau, the majority of economists, scientists, historians, and other whiners just can't "handle the truth." The Truth is just too big and rough for them. The Truth is explosive, violent, and phallic. The Truth is so much money you can tell other people to cram it!
Don't worry Herr Truth Handler, someone will find the right data and everyone will be forced to handle the Truth! Be patient. When your ideology return to power, then history can be corrected.
I think Chris, (comment below), gets to the crux with the most significant point. But let's follow handlethetruth's logic here:
Comparison of the welfare of families that ignore a significant percentage of the compensation they receive are spurious and misleading. Intentionally misleading, I might add, since this is well-trod ground.
Yes, let's compare benefits expenses of those below the median income line with benefits expenses above the median line.
Such "well-trod" ground will not strenghten handlethetruth's position. Perhaps that is why no such data is marshalled, but rather an ad hoc attack Brownstein's intelligence.
I think Chris, (comment below), gets to the crux with the most significant point. But let's follow handlethetruth's logic here:
Comparison of the welfare of families that ignore a significant percentage of the compensation they receive are spurious and misleading. Intentionally misleading, I might add, since this is well-trod ground.
Yes, let's compare benefits expenses of those below the median income line with benefits expenses above the median line.
Such "well-trod" ground will not strenghten handlethetruth's position. Perhaps that is why no such data is marshalled, but rather an ad hoc attack Brownstein's intelligence. But please do marshall such data for us.
Are you suggesting that we NOT believe our lying eyes? Numbers do not lie! 1 + 1 = 2 every where humans count them. Question: Are you better off today than you were during Clinton? Answer for MOST Americans ... NO! And get this ... NUMBERS don't lie ...but we KNOW Republicans do. Think George Bush! And of course the current Republican Party! What ass*oles!
I totally agree with you gparks, republicans have made lieing a art form, those fools dont care about nothing but power, what kills me though is that they hate the government yet they fight and lie to get a position with the government, i wish all of them would join sarah in alasaka
You obviously can't handle the truth. All I read in your post are attacks and innuendos about the INTENTIONS of the author. "intentionally misleading" (you a mind reader?) "cherry picking" ( You got the whole data set in front of you? Why don't you point out speciific examples of cherry picking?) and name calling, but hey, let's not allow the facts to get in the way of my cherished beliefs huh?
I guess everything wrong with this country is Obama's fault.
"If one were to take, say, the 1998 statistics and compare them to, say, the 2006 statistics, we'd say that the Bush record is stronger than the Clinton record."
No.
Unfortunately, handlethetruth, your argument is full of holes.
First of all, while median income may exclude compensations, it excludes them for the Bush years AS WELL AS the Clinton years...that's not misleading at all. The median income, as used here, is a controlled (read: rational and rationed) basis for argument.
Second, the only case of cherry picking going on here is your argument. You can't pick an arbitrary point in time where (presumably) your guy was doing better. Mr. Brownstein picked a solid and stable measurement - two presidential terms. He picked it and stuck to it, mind you, even when it included two different presidents (Kennedy/Johnson).
ditto back attcha on the f-ing joke.
As bad as Bush's stats are he gets a break here.
I would say a big one. Quantum.
This entire economic meltdown is owned by Bush. It was the natural result of wealth concentration policies causing demand and the commercial economy to demand.
Bush's stats are only going to include the first quarter of the economic melt down that began in September 2008. It's then that we finally turned that corner that Bush was so often talking about.
Bush gets a pass after January 20, 2009, yet the economy continued to hemmerage jobs at a rate of one half a million a month after that.
None of the statistics cited in this article reflect the true and massive blow the Bush tenure leveled on the United States. In fact he ruined the country. He took the United States from history's peak, and almost single handedly shortened the American century by 50 years.
This nation is suddenly where Britain was between the two wars. High stature, weakening strength.
I mean if we are going to cherry pick our statistics, give Clinton the first quarter or two of the Bush Administration (which would surely lower Clinton's marks, as their was a recession, but it was a rather mild one at that - could be, and perhaps should be pegged to Clinton) and then pass the first two quarters of the Obama administration on to Bush.
All those years about Bush and his flunkies complaining about the recession that Clinton left him. Well, fare enough. Give it to Clinton. But that means you guys own the recession you gave Obama.
Bush, utterly and irretrievably destroyed this country and has caused tens of millions of his fellow countrymen unspeakable pain and anguish.
For everyone of those drops in median household income, there are unspeakable suffering going on by every day Americans. Shame on Bush.
um...the reason you don't try to sum up a presidency in the middle of it, is that it is not over yet. Is it really that hard to understand?
you haven't done anything to counter the argument. and probably because the FACTS are that Bush ran things into the dirt.
Wait a minute. If median income doesn't include health care benefits, and if more people lost health care benefits, and/or are paying more for them as the employee's share, then the decline in median income actually understates the income loss people have experienced. If my income declines by 5% after adjusting for inflation, but I also either lose health care coverage altogether, or have to pay more for it than I did previously, then my net compensation has declined by more than 5%.
Having said that, there are all kinds of things that aren't properly captured in those census statistics. One is the effect that a continued flood of immigration into the U.S. had; immigration accounts for almost all population growth in the U.S., and most earn less than the median, so necessarily they're going to pull the median down. This view of the Bush terms also doesn't take into account the effects of "offshoring" and other globalization phenomena. My own actual inflation-adjusted income reduction occurred because a lot of the work I do (business computer systems development) moved overseas. I'm not happy about the loss of income, to be sure, but the benefits of trade to consumers are undeniable.
Thanks be to "most journalists [who] are going to give the government the benefit of some doubt" and their uncritical celebration, year after year, of increased chocolate rations. Praise be to Bush. Slow clap for Ambinder.
I'm certainly no Bushie. But, the fact that Bush inherited a recession should be factored in. The tech bubble grew during the Clinton years and burst right at the end of his term. The housing bubble started growing in 1998 (when congress decided to loosen the rules for Fannie & Freddie - under Clinton) and burst wreaking havoc under Bush.
Bush did wreck the economy with his badly managed wars but Clinton was no darling.
The housing bubble alone was not nearly enough to cause the financial crisis. The ability of the banks to create assets that super-leveraged investment in subprime loans caused it. What Clinton and Congress did with Fannie and Freddie was misguided, but subprime is a very small part of the mortgage market and the losses aren't that big. So much fake value was built around it by deregulated high financiers, and it blew up, as fake value always will.
These days you don't here Bushies complaining about the recession Clinton handed him. Why? Because if they give up the first two or three quarters they had to Clinton, then they have to own the first two or three quarters of the Obama administration.
The Clinton recession was mild. It probably wouldn't have happened if Clinton had gotten even bigger tax increases that he had pushed for at the begginning of his tenure - because taxes help let out air out of those bubbles. The Bush tax cuts had the opposite effect, leading us to where we are today.
Clinton did not "hand him" a recession. The recession began in March 2001. Americans had just witnessed / experienced a blatantly stolen election and, naturally insecure about what was in store for the future, closed their collective wallets.
All you government-lovin libruls don't understand that conservatism never got a chance to work during the 6 or so years that conservatives controlled the whole government!
What we needed to keep poverty (what some of us call "loserdom") down was the following
-More huge wealth transfers to rich people in the form of TAX CUTS!
-Private social security accounts (sure woulda kept the old folk workin!)
-Private voucher system for Medicare- go with what works and if that ain't private health insurance that I don't know what is!
-The needless invasion and occupation of at least one other country that barely has a military.
-Less regulation of the financial system (obvi)
-More incentives to work!! Look at all the employers who can't find people to apply for their open jobs!!
-More homeownership by people who were of the impression that they couldn't afford it.
-TAX CUTS!!
-Then if we get bored, let's pass a few mandatory minimum laws.
When will we learn that the only way to tackle poverty is to ignore it?
Ah, the sort of person who think that letting taxpayers keep their money counts as a transfer. What else works that way? Learning, by leaving the book closed? I suppose that explains your post.
Ignorance that hides behind smugness is still ignorance, you know. Truth.
You know a country that has its act together? Mexico.
A man can keep what he earns.
You don't have all these regulations interfering with the way a man runs his business. No EPA, no OSHA, no Dept. of Labor, no FTC, none of that gov'ment horse***t.
Of course, poverty is rampant, corruption is out of control, you can't drink the water or breathe the air, the rich are virtual prisoners in their gated enclaves, people are dying on the street, but at least you don't have the damn gov'ment running every damn thing.
All good Republicans should work unceasingly until Amerika is a third world country, too.
By selectively enacting tax loopholes for big business and special interests, the Congrss has allowed the most immense transfer of wealth in our nation's history. Tax deferred compensation doesn't raise the poverty level. Nor do $1B bonuses and a 15% capital tax ceiling on hedge fund profits. Let's continue to allow oil companies a depletion allowance.
The sysytem has been gamed by the few insiders and they cry wolf when we seek equity.
Truth, I've watched you harangue the masses all day, by grossly distorting not only what others say but what you yourself say. I can't believe you really think this way, this just seems like some kind of game to you.
Bless the people that have taken the time to take you seriously enough to try to get you to see the errors of your silly, silly comments.
You're an awful blowhard and a total bully, and I'm sure you say all of these things in a way that you would never say them in person. It's a shame really. Now go back to your little man's world and let the grown-ups talk.
Sure it looks bad, but you're ignoring just how awesome it was to be rich.
Just think how bad we would have had it without those tax cuts.
Here is the report that the article is based upon:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf
As you can see, reality is a bit more complicated than this article would lead you to believe.
You'd think people at the Atlantic would have figured out this whole hyperlink thing by now.
You think Brownstein actually read it? That's what Cam is for.
Perhaps the question offered at the end: "...if tax cuts are truly the best means to stimulate broadly shared prosperity..." is the wrong question. Perhaps a better question would be - is governmental action really the main driving force behind economic growth and prosperity?
From my study of economics years ago one thing that stuck out in a major way was the basic tenet that most economists agree that Presidents get too much of the credit and too much of the blame for the economy.
Some food for thought.
But then look at the data.
It's not like somethings were up and somethings were down.
The data is black and white.
And remember what you know. 2001 brought about a big and massive change in economic policies and priorities.
The emergence of Bush brought a hard line push for concentration of wealth (and for that matter power). The results followed.
In fact if they were different than what's pose some very troubling questions because it would be inconsistent with past and geographically dispersed occurances.
This is backed by theoretical rendering and historical and geographical economic analysis, that concentrated wealth, when it becomes too concentrated, relative to demand, leads to contraction of aggregate demand and the commercial economy. It also leads to investment bubbles and indirectly to intense demands to deregulate.
I mean, this is why I became a Democrat back in the early 1990s.
T'was always thus (see the fall of Rome and half of the great implossions in history) and always thus t'will be.
It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
But it will please most of them. These guys are, for the most part, Social Darwinists, who see the economic bifurcation of our society as natural, and high mortality rates and other crises of the poor as evolution at work.
Except that they don't believe in evolution, so it must be the Will of God.
BINGO! Liberals must stop projecting their values on conservatives. Liberals think of this "bad" news as, well, bad. These results of Republican domination are EXACTLY what they WANTED, and WILL point to with pride in the company of their comrades.
Unless they're running for office, they will point with pride!
Although some of the facts in the article above are hard to argue with, some of it is really just "cherry picking."
I'll take just one area of the Bush economy that you'd like to look at -The increase in uninsured.
The numbers don't explain the swath of illegal immigrants that may or may not have been included in the increased number of uninsured. Also, how many of the uninsured qualify for government help with respect to healthcare and didn't sign up for it or didn' use it? Was there a growth in the size of the US population? If the population did grow, what was the percentage of the population that was uninsured under Clinton, and then Bush? Maybe the percentage remained near constant? Maybe the percentage of those insured grew. Your research leaves this out completely. These are important distinctions that if used, can completely change the outcome of opinions. Your broad, generalizations based on nationwide statistics shows just how badly you want your facts to support your opinion.
Some of the raw numbers are misleading. Better to talk about the percentage of the population under the poverty line than the raw numbers. The poverty numbers had a larger percentage increase than the population increase over that same period, so it's not going to look good for Bush, either, but it is a fairer representation.
Using these same types of raw number arguments, you can say more people voted for George W. Bush for president than any other person in American history, which hides the fact that he lost the popular vote once and won a very slim re-election the second time.
The last eight years were the first presidency by a Colonel Kurtz. The United States had crazy Dick Cheney while little Bush rode his bicycle, and even now his ideology-bots from the eminent Georgia and Texas want to defend his torture of kids like Mohammed Jawad, cannibalizing our professional military, spying on government peers and the public, marginalizing the FBI, and wrecking the economy, and we get the same set of excuses for 40 years of failed policy. Excuses like, the brown people are to blame, the numbers are biased, and government did it.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2009/02/frakt-closing-argument.pdf
How much more evidence dose it have to take before the people of the civilized world accept that G. W. Bush and his Republican cronies are the ultimate LOSERS!
It's an astounding shock to see the level of ignorant of the Republicans in their denial of truth: G. W. Bush is a MISERABLE FAILURE. The world knows it. The wildlife know it. The sane Americans know it. Yet, those deluded brain-washed Republicans are still having their heads in the sands thriving on pure garbage propaganda from Fox News and ingest the poisons from corporate America propaganda machines.
How much more evidence dose it have to take before the people of the civilized world accept that G. W. Bush and his Republican cronies are the ultimate LOSERS!
It's an astounding shock to see the level of ignorant of the Republicans in their denial of truth: G. W. Bush is a MISERABLE FAILURE. The world knows it. The wildlife know it. The sane Americans know it. Yet, those deluded brain-washed Republicans are still having their heads in the sands thriving on pure garbage propaganda from Fox News and ingest the poisons from corporate America propaganda machines.
I have a major in statistics. I would trust the Census Bureau to have valid methods of statiscal comparison. If it were the other way around the Republicans would be blowing their horn.
It is important to remember that statistics do not LIE...Republicans do...ask Joe Wilson.
One would think that this would finally put an end to the Reagan Republican Revolution. The problem is that facts are never enough to kill a bad ideology. Bad ideologies just keep on rising from the dead like vampires in a low budget horror movie.
Republicans find policies that fit their ideology and Democrats find policies that fit the facts.
Mike Burns
http://www.disorderlyreport.com/
ANYONE, AND I MEAN ANYONE who is stupid enough to belive for a second that conducting two wars while borrowing from foriegn countries to finance them while granting the most wealthy citizens giant tax breaks is in need of a serious mental adjustment. When you add to this the fact that Bush and his cronies resisted any kind of regulation of the crookso on Wall Street during his 8 years in office while they robbed the public blind, it's a recipe for disaster. He ignored the nation's infrastructure, education, crime rate, and the health and welfare of the troops who were fighing for him. he allowed the giant health insurance companies and drug companies to milk american citizens dry without trying to reform anything and left our borders open to anyone who wanted in. Now, after all this has been done, the Republicans actually have the gall to criticize what this President is trying to do and pitch "hissie fits" when they don't get their way. I believe that most Americans know the real truth about what's happened and who's to blame. The Republicans haven't warmed any hearts or bolstered any confidence in me by anything they've done since the election and I don't expect the party of NO to do so.
This report brilliantly states the obvious to the liberal mind, but misses a huge point. If you see a slaughter of seals on the beach, don't assume the shark just offshore feels bad about it. Incomes going down and poverty going up, and people losing healthcare PROVES the conservatives are getting their money's worth out of their elected officials.
Republican conservatives WANT poverty to rise and incomes to fall. How else will their personal fortunes rise? These statistics do not show a failure on Bush's part. They show complete success.
Your touchy-feely liberal mind WANTS them to feel bad, but you are projecting at your peril.
scottie44 has it right. If everyone were to take a step back and ask yourself the Reagan question, Are you better off now than you were 8 years ago? The answer is simple and the reasons are in scottie44 message. So if history repeats itself, why would we want to do what we saw did not work for 8 years? Simple story problem
Jus Goes to show, never hire an Amish Mechanic or vote for a Republican Politician. If they don't believe that something should exist they probably will do a bad job of making it run correctly.
United States has been bankrupt since 2007 when bush and bernake floated about 500 billion IOUs to europeon banks ..It did hold off bankruptcy effects to 2008...Problem is no one wants to loan for unending war, corrupt corp. and wall street anymore..Obama has to want to change this corrupt system first, I am not so sure he does.
United States has been bankrupt since 2007 when bush and bernake floated about 500 billion IOUs to europeon banks ..It did hold off bankruptcy effects to 2008...Problem is no one wants to loan for unending war, corrupt corp. and wall street anymore..Obama has to want to change this corrupt system first, I am not so sure he does.
Let us not forget Obama is a political figure. He is not going to change our government and politics. All he can do is make it better in the structure. Only a revolution can change the system but at least he can balance the scales. These problems with capitalism will always occur if no one is watching out for the little guy.
Wall street is not going away, massive corporations will not go away. These are inevitabilities of our system. The base consumer has to stop expecting a cowboy on a white horse and create change in there habits. We can't rely on trickle down change. We have to force change.
'Cherry Picking' would be to take a month or two from somewhere in Bush's terms and declare that he did better than Clinton, or Obama. The impact of Bush policy is cumulative so Brownstein is correct in looking at the total of 8 years in relation to what Bush left us.
Two examples: Unemployment was at 4% when Clinton turned over the baton, Bush turned that into 7.6% with the unemployment trajectory skyrocketing as he turned the WH over to Obama. Bush must have been trying to get unemployment back to what his father left it at in 1992.
The S&P was at 1366.01 in January 2001 and Bush beat it down to 825.88 by the time he left office. He did as much damage to the entire market.
A number of Bush's own people/party admit to GW's policies decimating the economy and certainly, the majority of respected economists find nothing to celebrate about in his 8 years.
The numbers are real, but the argument is not. This is classic measuring from a peak. Clinton left office and handed Bush the dot.com crash which was severe in many areas. Then 9/11 happened. America's recovery from these crises was impressive.
Meanwhile Bush and Congress deserve ample criticism for letting Fannie and Freddie silently nationalize the US home loan market and create the millions of sub-prime loans that transformed a recession into a global meltdown. While it is true that Democrats were the main supporters, the Republicans were not able to reign it in, even during the 2005 scandals.
But it does raise a fascinating point. Is the ideal combination a Democrat President with a Republican Congress?
The ideal combination is cleaning house - term limits are a good start, let's start moving these fat cat power hungry men (and a few ladies) out and get fresh blood and ideas in our capital.
The discussion obviously can be pushed in more than one direction depending on what time frames and numbers are used. But historically, GW falls into the same 'results' category as all of his republican predecessors.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/103087-democrats-or-republicans-who-s-better-for-wall-street
http://ei-forum.com/2008/11/04/stock-market-returns-democrats-vs-republicans/
I can remember the dot-com bubble bursting just at the end of the Clinton era, who gets credit for that one? Just like the latest financial crisis, everyting was inflated and then the bottom fell out and us "real" people were left holding the bag. I think both sides (or many or whichever side) can use stats to make whatever point they want. I don't think Bush's policies have not been good to the country other than keeping us secure, but then I think of 9/11 and the different world we live in and wonder if anything will ever be the same?
Oops, I meant to say "I don't think Bush's policies ahve been good to the country.."
"…other than keeping us secure"??? Are you for real? On whose watch did 9/11 happen? Which administration ignored the intelligence and the warnings? During which time frame did the rest of the world start looking at us in shame as our leaders waged a war against a sovereign nation that never attacked us? Who else should have been included on that “axis of evil” list?
I'm not really adding much to the discussion, but on investment, consider this:
(*) it cost bin Laden et al. about a $1M to pull off 9/11
(*) 9/11 cost about 3,000 lives, perhaps 30,000 more lives directly impacted, and about $10B in financial damage to NYC
(*) W invaded Afghanistan, more or less because that's where bin Laden was.
(*) W invaded Iraq, more or less because, um why?
(*) it costs about $2B/week to be doing whatever it is that we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we've been doing it for years.
(*) we've spent about $1T in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So, while the Republicans can chest thump about Bill Clinton failing to keep his zipper up, and spending $100M to impeach him, they can also point to the fact that they helped bin Laden turn every dollar he spent for 9/11 into a million dollars wasted by W. Except that it wasn't his money: it was ours. Oh, and there's also the lives lost, and the torture thing.
Is there *any* possible way that history won't condemn W.?
I mean, really?