As I mentioned in a previous post, my belief is that we have got to stop the Bush bashing now if we intend to stop the Dems from bankrupting this nation and removing our satelite defenses. The following are things said about GWB by Liberals as well as Conservatives who refuses to let go of blaming Bush even though we have a new president and the Democrats have all the power.
Bush left Obama a 1.3 Trillion dollar debt
Actually, the number was more like 150 billion dollars until the last few months where it jumped to around 1/2 a trillion. Did you know that in GWB's time, we had near nero unemployment? That he dealt with 2 recessions (dot com and post 9/11)? Most people barely noticed because it was dealt with quickly and correctly...GWB did not use the "crisis" to do some social engineering or to further a conservative agenda.
Speaking of the economy...did you know that Alaska has no income tax and that their governor, the GOP VP nominee Palin, got the oil companies to give the public rebates? Did you know that she has managed to work with these companies for their profit and to increase jobs for Alaskans?
Did you know that McCain, the GOP presidential nominee, never took pork in his 20 something years in Congress and proved by being elected time and time again, that politicians don't have to buy votes?
But didn't Bush spend, spend, spend?
Absolutely, on what a president is supposed to spend money on--the war 9/11 plunged us into. He also spent money on the no-child left behind program which made teachers accountable for what their students learned; as long as the Federal government was into the Carter created public educational system on a Federal level, GWB wanted to make sure that teachers couldn't just pass their students onto the next grade without learning what they should be taught in that level. This did not make him particularly popular with teachers who felt it put an undue pressure on poorer schools with lesser educators. GWB also refused to have Republicans be known as the party that would force the elderly to choose between spending their meager Social Security check on the new (and expensive) miracle drugs and eating. He pushed forward and enacted a drug plan, that thanks to free trade drug companies vying for Senior Citizen's business cost far less than originally expected.
After 9/11, GWB's deficit was around half a trillion dollars. By the end of his second term, mere months before the THIRD recession of his two terms, the deficit had strunk to a fourth of the post 9/11 and the deficit left by Reagan. This happened because while GWB DID spend money, he also gave what those before him and Obama after him did NOT...TAX CUTS.
Did you know that McCain is famous for his demanding spending cuts? And Palin has been accused of acting like the Alaskan tax money is HERS, because she guards it as though every penny spent is her money that needs justification and full accounting. Every time I hear about the trillion being spent here and trillion being spent there, I think of McCain and Palin and how these two would have given the Democratic run Congress a real accounting nightmare.