Perhaps, the greatest failure of the Bush Administration began when George W. Bush enjoyed his greatest popularity.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 as the president proposed increasing defense spending to beef up our national security at home and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, he failed to hold the line on domestic spending. At that time, given his popularity and the mood of the country, he could more easily have pushed budget cuts through Congress. But, he acted as if there were no need to make any trade-offs, that the federal government had an unending supply of ready money to fund all federal programs.
Now, we’ve got Barack Obama making a vast array of promises for higher levels federal spending, at a time when the financial bailout increases the deficit to to unprecedented highs. Just like Bush, he refuses to identify any trade-offs. According to CBS News, “Very few independent economists believe [Obama] has identified the savings needed to offset his remarkable list of tax credits, tax cuts and spending pledges.“ (Read the whole thing.)
Just as Obama has failed to identify the savings he needed to pay for his plans, so too did President Bush fail to offer any savings when he stood up to the threat of terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
At last Bush’s policies had the effect of preventing a subsequent attack on the US. Obama’s are likely to prolong the recession.
And just like Bush, Obama seems to surround himself with “Yes men and yes women.” Thus, he kicks the reporters off the plane from the papers that didn’t endorse him. Hope and change!
The entire key to better government in this country is the control of government spending. For far too many in government the saying goes that there is no government program that failed, only one that was underfunded. When was the last time that you heard of government employees being laid off due to budget problems? Every president in my time has come to power with the promise that they would balance the budget ………….. and, all have failed.
Which is it? Liberals on one hand say that the Bush administration has been virtually at war with eachother, and on the other hand that dissent is not tolerated — whichever suits their purposes at the time. You cant have it both ways.
And when did Bush kick anyone off anything? Even when Helen Thomas retired they didn’t kick her off the WH press corps. Indeed, they gave her a permanent front row seat. The only person I remember the Bush administration kicking off anything was Jeff Gannon for daring to report the administrations side of the story, which the MSM didn’t want people to hear.
Swamp,
Clinton balanced the budget, albeit because Republicans forced him to.