Today marks the last day of Lurching Right’s President Bush Spectacular and I’m ready to give him my final grade, something that was rather difficult to do.
Obviously, there were some things that the president did that I wholeheartedly agreed with, others…not so much and it was challenging to determine each one’s proper level of importance.
But in the end I settled on giving the President a C- for his entire administration (I know, way to take a definitive stand John).
Now, let me just state that this grade of a C- is as of today. Down the road, that grade will undoubtedly change, as it is very hard to look at something objectively when it’s still so fresh.
I think that his presidency could possibly be upgraded to a B/B+ in coming years if Iraq continues to be a functioning democracy, Afghanistan stabilizes and becomes the same, Al-Qaeda does not experience a resurgence and Iran and North Korea do not become nuclear menaces.
On the flip side, I think his presidency could possibly be graded an F if Iraq fails, Afghanistan does the same, our economy creeps closer to a Soviet-style economy and if Iran and North Korea emerge as nuclear threats.
I know that some of you probably think that I’m being a bit tough on Old G.W., but I really think I’m being pretty fair to him.
As big of a success as the War on Terror has been, the inability to finalize the Iran/North Korean nuclear situations is nearly as big of a failure.
The same can be said of his Supreme Court nominations and his willingness to agree to governmental bailouts.
Again, I like the man more than his performance and am thankful that he did manage to restore some decency and dignity to the office after the swingin’ years of President Clinton.
So that’s it, a C-. I will say I did expect to give him slightly worse than this when I started writing this series of entries, but upon looking at his whole administration, I did bump it up slightly.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
A president’s economic performance is probably the most difficult aspect to measure when assessing an administrations entire body of work.
While presidents make economic policy, they do not have the same control over the economy as they do with say…foreign policy. That may come as a shock to the millions of people that blindly email online petitions to “Get President ________ to lower prices on ________”.
That’s right; presidents don’t set prices, manipulate inventories, discontinue old, or develop new products.
In general, too much praise is heaped on a president for a good economy and too much criticism is assigned to them during poor ones.
I say “in general” for a reason, as President Bush deserves both ample praise and sharp criticism due to his economic decisions being so bold, so substantial.
I’ll start with the good.
From 2001 to 2007, President Bush had a very impressive economic record.
When he took office, he inherited a recession that started in the later stages of the Clinton administration. This recession became far worse after the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks.
To get the country out of the tough economic position it was in, President Bush aggressively cut taxes and took an extremely pro-business approach to his economic policies.
As a result, this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth - 52 consecutive months and 8.3 million jobs created. Unemployment averaged 4.7% from 2001-2007, compared to the 5.2% experienced under the “Good Old Days” of the Clinton Administration.
Additionally, from 2001-2007, real GDP grew by 17%, gaining an extraordinary $2.1 trillion.
Also in that time, real after-tax income per capita increased by 11% and there was a 4.7% increase in the number of new businesses formed.
116 million taxpayers benefited from the President's tax relief. The across-the-board tax cuts provided tax relief to every American who pays income taxes, created a new bottom 10 percent bracket rate, doubled the child tax credit to $1,000, and (contrary to what the Left will lead you to believe) actually increased the share of the Federal income tax burden paid by the top 10 percent of individual earners from 67 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2005. Furthermore, this Administration removed 13 million low-income earners from the income tax rolls completely.
This economic growth spurred by tax relief also spurred growth in Federal tax receipts, as the Federal Treasury realized the largest three-year increase of revenue in 26 years and tax receipts grew more than $542 billion between 2000 and 2007.
Then came 2008.
While unfettered economic growth cannot continue forever, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen the economic hangover this country was in for in 2008.
With the collapse of the housing market and the financial system coinciding with an election cycle, we had the perfect storm for an economic meltdown.
Now I’m not going to sit here and claim that President Bush was the cause of all of the economic turmoil that this country experienced in the last 12 months.
That would be foolish.
I am, however, going to criticize the president’s lack of vision and, frankly, backbone when dealing with the economic crisis.
I’ve heard supporters of the president say “he warned Congress about the dicey lending practices of Fannie and Freddie for years”.
Yeah? So?
If he was so concerned about this situation, why didn’t he do something to stop these practices from happening? I don’t want to hear that he couldn’t get the Democrats to play ball, as that’s a foolish argument. He had majorities in both the House and the Senate until 2006 and nothing was done.
Even if he didn’t have majorities, he still could have applied some pressure on Congressional Democrats to changes these lending rules.
After all, President Reagan never had the Congressional majorities that President Bush had and he sure as hell got things done.
Then there’s the bailouts.
It’s a good thing that we passed those massive bailout packages, as now everything is perfectly fin…oh yeah, that’s right, they’ve done nothing! And if that’s not enough, there were reports last week stating that government officials have no idea how the funds are being spent and where a lot of the money is.
Your U.S. Government folks! The epitome of efficiency (insert eye roll here)!
My God, I still don’t know what President Bush was thinking when he agreed to go along with these bailouts.
You know, instead of blindly going along with these ridiculous spending sprees, I wish he would have just said, “you know, things are pretty tough right now and they may get tougher down the road, but capitalism didn’t just break. All we need is a little patience and the markets will correct themselves…as they always have”.
As I suspected, now that the government bailed out the financial system, everyone and mother is asking for a handout from Uncle Sam.
This is so, so, so dangerous as at this rate, the government is going own a piece of most major companies in this country. We all saw how well that worked for the Soviets.
Unfortunately for President Bush, these bailouts will be his economic legacy. All of his tax cuts and pro-business policies were great, but in the end, they will be completely overshadowed by his capitulation to the Left and public opinion while agreeing to use public funds to bailout private industries.
Once again, this is something we will be paying for for a long, long time.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
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 New Orleans.
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 New Orleans been viewed as this national treasure before this event? Literally, everyone I know that has been there uses the following words or phrases to describe the CrescentCity:
Sewer
Toilet
Dump
Awful
Vomit-infested hellhole
Now, I’m not saying that New Orleans deserved to be destroyed by a hurricane or that I don’t feel for the people that lost their lives, possessions or homes, but the sanctimonious blubbering about the “national treasure” that is New Orleans was really nauseating.
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 New Orleans within three days, dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations within two hours of the hurricane hitting the city and by the end of the first week, government workers saved over 80,000 citizens.
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 America.
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 Florida who had been declared brain dead by doctors and her husband wanted to take her off of life support, but her family resisted.
They put all of their time and effort behind saving this woman’s life and challenging a law in Florida and completely dropped the whole Social Security plan.
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 PapahānaumokuākeaMarineNational Monument, the world's largest fully protected marine conservation area (nearly 140,000 square miles).
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.
Until now, I have been fairly easy on President Bush. The issues that I have discussed have been, no doubt, some of his finest deeds as president.
Well, for all you Bush-haters out there (and I know there’s a large number of you) I’m sure you’ll enjoy today’s entry.
As noted last week, President Bush’s foreign policy has resulted in a number of very impressive initiatives that not only helped us, but the rest of the world as well.
While those gains should be applauded, they do not absolve him for the complete foreign policy failures that he has managed.
I’ll deal with these one by one.
Russia
While our dealings with Russia have hardly been a complete failure, I would certainly not categorize them as a success either.
Over the past 12-18 months, Russia has really ramped up the anti-American rhetoric; so much so that you would think it was 1984, not 2009. They’ve pranced around our hemisphere and gotten cozy with similar despotic regimes like Chavez’s of Venezuela and Castro’s of Cuba, while flexing their military might during war games with the former.
Personally, this doesn’t worry me too much as I think Russia is far more bark then bite. While they are strong militarily, they still do not approach our armed forces capabilities.
And if you think our economy is bad, oh man, you should check out there’s! Rampant unemployment, inflation through the roof and corruption…well, everywhere.
That is not to say that we do not have to take them seriously, but I do not view them as the menace that some do.
Where we failed with Russia, however, was during this summer’s invasion of Georgia by Russian forces.
Georgia is one of our staunchest allies. They have done everything in their power to get closer to the U.S. They have opened up their markets to embrace capitalism and are on the road to becoming a member of NATO.
As all of you know, during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Russian tanks rolled through Georgian towns. Their buildings were bombed, their people killed all while the rest of the world was in awe of the spectacle going on in the People’s Republic.
What was our response to a close ally, a sovereign nation being invaded simply because they wanted to join NATO?
Words. Words that fell on deaf ears.
This had to have been incredibly disappointing to the Georgians, as none of their efforts to get closer to the U.S. prevented an attack that resulted in the loss of land, a destroyed infrastructure and many civilian and military deaths.
This showed Georgians, and the rest of the world for that matter, that being an ally of the U.S. isn’t what it used to be.
North Korea
What?
North Korea?
Didn’t they agree to end their nuclear weapons program?
Didn’t they destroy their nuclear cooling tower to prove their cooperation?
Wasn’t this a success?
Oh, how a few months can change everything…
For a while, this section would’ve appeared in the foreign policy success entry. But as the end of the Bush Administration gets closer, so does the realization that North Korea will, once again, begin developing nuclear weaponry.
If you’re not aware of the latest developments in North Korea, let me bring you up to speed.
The vaunted Six-Party Talks, you know the multi-national approach that was going to rid the world of the North Korean nuclear menace, have all but collapsed and Pyongyang is becoming ever more vague as to how or when they will actually adhere to their original cooperation.
President Bush should have known that this cooperation would not last. The other members of the talks (China, South Korea, Japan and China) were not as eager as we were to rid the North Koreans of this weaponry and it showed as none of them seriously pressed the issue with Kim Jong Il.
Additionally, President Bush should have known better than to treat the North Koreans with the respect that rational governments demand. The war-mongering North should not have been trusted, simple as that.
While, I do not necessarily abdicate going to war with North Korea, I do think that tougher actions should have been taken.
Further economic sanctions or air strikes to take out nuclear installations would have been better approaches than diplomacy with a bunch of disinterested parties.
As a result, President failed at one of his largest foreign policy goals: ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.
Good luck with that one Barack!
Iran
Here's another hot potato President Bush will pass along to President-elect Obama.
To me, this is President Bush’s grandest foreign policy failure.
Again and again, I have repeated how disastrous a nuclear Iran would be, so I’m not going to rehash all of those old arguments.
I just find it incomprehensible that he did not do anything to stop Iran’s nuclear aspirations. I know that he was sabotaged by his own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December of 2007, but with a successful Iraq critical to not only the rest of the Middle East and world, but to his own legacy as well, he still should have acted to relieve the region of such a source of instability and danger.
He could have done something…anything else than what he did, err...didn't do.
Again, calculated air strikes, a proxy war fought through Israel (a nation who’s arm no one has to twist when their safety is challenged) and draconian economic sanctions could have worked...at least they should have been tried.
Instead, of actually doing something about it, all he offered was words. Words, that again, fell on deaf ears.
Hopefully, Iran won’t develop the bomb. Hopefully, the Ahmadinejad regime will collapse. Hopefully, it won’t be replaced by an even more fanatic leader. Hopefully, President-elect Obama will be able to find a resolution.
That’s an awful lot to hope for though.
One last hope that I have is that years from now historians won’t look back at 2008 the same way they look back to the early 30’s and wonder why nothing was done to stop such a despotic, evil regime from wreaking havoc all over the world.
If they do, the first finger of blame will, and should, be pointed directly at President Bush.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
President Bush’s detractors will try to claim that his foreign policy isolated us from the rest of the global community, squandered international goodwill and turned friends into enemies.
I know what I’m about to say is going to come as a shock to many, but here I go anyway…the rest of the world disliked us before President Bush came along.
I’ll pause for the collective gasp…
Now, I’m not about to claim that President Bush has a spotless record in his foreign policy affairs, however to insinuate that his presidency marked the dawn of international hostilities towards the United States is patently absurd.
The way the rest of the world views us has little to nothing to do with the way we execute our global affairs.
The only thing that major foreign policy actions like the invasion of Iraq, the refusal to sign the Kyoto Agreement, our support of Israel, etc. provide is another excuse for foreign countries to criticize the United States. Believe me, if the events in the previous sentence did not occur, the global community would merely find another issue and criticize the U.S.’s stance on that.
Why is this? Quite simply, it’s the age-old case of the haves vs. the have-nots.
This is something that will come as quite a shock to the disciples of “Hope” and “Change”.
But that’s an entirely different conversation, on now to President Bush and his record.
Like much of President Bush’s administration, his foreign policy initiatives have been a mixed bag highlighted by spectacular successes and gargantuan failures.
Today, we’re going to focus on the successes, as they are quite impressive. President Bush…
Created a global coalition of nearly 100 nations to combat terrorist networks by sharing intelligence, crippling their finances and capturing or killing their members
Immensely increased America’s trade agreements as when he took office, agreements with only three countries existed, versus 14 today - with three additional agreements approved by Congress but not yet functioning and agreements with three countries that are awaiting Congressional approval
Built strong relationships in Asia with China and Taiwan (an exceptionally difficult task), Japan and South Korea
Moved closer to Great Brittan, France, Italy and Germany as pro-U.S. governments have been installed (especially in the latter three) throughout Europe
Signed a civilian nuclear power agreement with India, uniting the world’s oldest and largest democracies
Strengthened relationships with Latin America, including establishing initiatives with Brazil on biofuels and with Mexico and Central America on fighting organized crime and limiting the international drug trade
Expanded NATO membership
Did more to help the plight of Africans than any person in the history of mankind
I’d like to spend some more time on President Bush’s African policies, as they are truly extraordinary and have been almost completely ignored by a shameful American press.
President Bush’s President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was the largest single health investment by any government ever ($15 billion). When the initiative was launched in 2003, only about 50,000 sub-Saharan Africans were receiving antiretroviral treatment for AIDS. Today, 1.7 million people in the region, as well as tens of thousands more around the globe, are receiving such treatment. PEPFAR also funded efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus and provided care to the sick, dying and more than five million African orphans.
If that wasn’t enough, in July of this year, President Bush doubled the funding to $30 billion. The new funding will be used to train 140,000 new health care workers. It would also address other illnesses, like tuberculosis, that often complicate AIDS.
The president also backed a malaria initiative that has provided an estimated 25 million Africans with nets, spraying and other prevention and treatment options. Separate from the AIDS funds, the president has tripled development assistance and humanitarian aid to Africa since taking office.
It was the Bush administration that first raised the alarm about the atrocities in Darfur, organized a massive humanitarian relief effort to save people in the displaced camps and rallied an international coalition to send peacekeeping troops to restore order through African Union. While the civil war continues, casualties have declined and people are being fed by aid agencies, thanks to U.S. government generosity.
President Bush’s African policies are not exclusively humanitarian, as he has greatly bolstered the continent’s economic future as well.
Besides canceling much of Africa’s debt, The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, approved in 2000 and reauthorized in expanded form in 2004, provides trade benefits with the United States for 40 African countries that have implemented reforms to encourage economic growth. Since 2001, US exports to Africa have more than doubled to $14 billion a year, while African exports to the United States more than tripled to $67 billion, of which $3.4 billion has been in goods other than oil. USAID has provided more than $500 million in trade capacity building for poor countries to access international markets, which is the only way Africa will escape the poverty that has for too long oppressed the continent.
I wanted to highlight these accomplishments because no one in the major media outlets appears willing to do so as that would contradict the “Bush is a madman” narrative that they have spent eight years perfecting.
As you can see, President Bush achieved a great deal around the world in his eight years as Commander in Chief. Let’s just hope his failures don’t bring down these outstanding accomplishments.
That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.
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