After a dizzying whistle stop tour of the rest of the world, Lurching Right is back home, safe and sound and ready to discuss President Bush’s domestic policies.
Without further ado…
Hurricane Katrina
This was one of the most poorly covered, artificially over hyped and completely fabricated stories in recent memory. For days and weeks following the terrible natural disaster, we were spoon-fed the litany of horrors that were taking place in the “beautiful” city of
Remember the reported rapes and murders in the Superdome? False.
Remember reports of over 50,000-60,000 dead? False, that number was 1,077.
Remember acquisitions that the government bombed the levees? Absurdly false.
Secondly, and I have no first-hand knowledge of this as I have never been there, but since when has
Sewer
Toilet
Dump
Awful
Vomit-infested hellhole
Now, I’m not saying that
But let’s get to the real issues here shall we?
Contrary to reports by blowhard talking heads, the government’s response to the disaster was vast and timely. Nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arrived in
This was not a case of the government turning its back on its people. This was not a way for the government to kill a bunch of poor blacks. This was not even a once in a lifetime storm.
This was merely a storm (a large one, but certainly not historic) that hit an area that isn’t suited to house large numbers of people or businesses.
Yet somehow, this turned into President Bush failing to act accordingly.
Please.
It was President Bush that declared the entire region a state of emergency two days before the hurricane hit and it was President Bush that personally called Louisiana’s then-Governor Blanco to encourage a rapid evacuation of the area…it was the Governor that failed to act promptly by the way.
This is just another example of how the media completely got it wrong.
Education
In his eight years in office, President Bush did an admirable job of trying to improve education in this country. While at times I think he could have taken different approaches, I can appreciate his efforts.
Under President Bush, federal educational spending rose about 40% (certainly more than I liked to see, but at least it’s for education and not something like ethanol subsidies…more on that later) and funds for Pell Grants nearly doubled. In fact, the Pell Grant funding is expected to help more than 5.5 million students attend college in the 2008-09 school year, over one million more than were assisted by Pell Grants in the 2001-02 school year.
While the No Child Left Behind Program wasn’t perfect, it did offer measurable results. Since it’s inception:
Fourth-grade students have achieved their highest reading and math scores on record.
Eighth-grade students have achieved their highest math scores on record.
African-American and Hispanic students have posted all-time high scores in a number of categories and narrowed the gap between them and white students.
Social Security Reform
Back in the spring of 2005, fresh off a clear victory of Senator John Kerry and with majorities in the House and Senate, President Bush proposed a plan to save Social Security. I’m not going to get into the nuts and bolts of the plan, but essentially, the plan called for a small percentage of every individual’s Social Security funds to be diverted into personal accounts that would be invested into the stock market.
Despite the recent dip in the stock market (and it is just a dip people) this would have been a sensational plan. It would’ve created unprecedented wealth, saved a crumbling system, saved the government billions of dollars and energized Wall Street.
The problem was that people were a bit leery of the plan. The Left and the media portrayed the plan as Bush raiding people’s social security accounts to give kickbacks to his fat-cat friends in corporate
Despite this delusional depiction of the plan, the general public started to warm up to the idea. President Bush pushed long and hard to get this plan passed and it looked like there was a real chance that it could one day get approval.
Then, President Bush and the entire Republican Party took their eye off the ball and got wrapped up in the Terry Schiavo case.
If you don’t remember her, she was the poor woman from
They put all of their time and effort behind saving this woman’s life and challenging a law in
This was a major error by the president; one we will all be paying for for a long time.
Environment
President Bush wisely ignored the radical environmental Left and did not sign the Kyoto Agreement that would have crippled our economy while doing nothing to stop the myth that is manmade global warming.
In fact, despite many calling him the President with the worst environmental record (yet another example of the Left’s inability to rationally debate an issue, so instead they just keep heaping hyperbole upon hyperbole) in the past eight years:
Air pollution has dropped 12%.
Fine particulate matter pollution is down 17%
Nearly $18 billion has been allocated to research, develop, and the promotion of alternative and more efficient energy technologies such as biofuels, solar, wind, clean coal, nuclear and hydrogen.
This Administration has improved and protected the health of more than 27 million acres of Federal forest and grasslands, protected, restored, and improved more than three million acres of wetlands, and established the
The problem with President Bush’s environmental policies stem from his actions over the past nine months.
I’m not sure if he is worn out form all of the abuse he’s endured over the past eight years or if Al Gore slipped him some of the Kool Aid he’s been drinking, but all of a sudden he’s buying into the Global warming fairy tale too.
He’s a fairly large proponent of ethanol (one day I’ll do am entry about the evils of ethanol as they’re far too many to list here) and has set into motion a plan to lower greenhouse gases to dangerous levels by 2025…economy be damned.
This was terribly disappointing and rather shocking turn of events and, unfortunately, another error we will all be paying for for a long time.
Boy, this is getting long, a few quick hitters to close us out…
Spending
It always makes me chuckle when I hear people talk about how conservative President Bush is.
Conservative my eye!
The man spent like a drunken sailor!
I know we’re at war and fiscal responsibility needs to take a back seat to our defense, but he took spending levels to ridiculous heights.
Immigration
Call it amnesty or whatever you want, but I agree with the president’s immigration policy. Just face it, the illegals that are here, are here to stay. It makes no sense to try to round them up and cripple numerous economies. We need to have them documented and on the way to becoming legal, taxpaying citizens.
Healthcare
Another example of his out of control spending, President grossly expanded Medicare thus contributing to the ever-growing nanny state.
Gay Rights
Once again, I think President Bush missed the mark on this as I completely support Gay Marriage (Again, too long of a discussion for this space, will revisit in a future entry).
Supreme Court
The nominations of Justices Alito and Roberts were outstanding. Hopefully, their conservative views will shape the court for the next generation.
Drug Use
Teenage drug use has declined 25 percent in President Bush’s term.
Crime
In 2007, the violent crime rate was 43 percent lower than the rate in 1998.
Abortion Rates
The most recent abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974.
Veteran Funding
In the last eight years, funding for veterans' medical care has increased more than 115 percent.
Like much of President’s term, another mixed bag of successes and failures.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
-John
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1 comment:
Gay Rights
Once again, I think President Bush missed the mark on this as I completely support Gay Marriage (Again, too long of a discussion for this space, will revisit in a future entry).
What!!?????
Frank
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