hope for and for which Mr. Bush should receive all the credit. He oversaw the expansion of NATO and our country's missile defenses and persuaded Libya to abandon its major weapon programs, a huge achievement considering Muammar Qaddafi's history of belligerence. However, the negatives were overwhelming. He allowed liberal Democrats to undermine education reform and to drive him (maybe willingly) toward establishment of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, saddling the American taxpayers with a huge new entitlement program. He mishandled the Federal responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (though Gov. Kathleen Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the culture of corrupt Louisiana politics were the main culprits), advocated clemency for millions of illegal immigrants in the face of stiff public opposition, allowed North Korea to test a nuclear weapon, test fire a salvo of missiles on the Fourth of July and repeatedly ignore its international obligations, and invaded Iraq without adequate preparations for security and reconstruction that cost tens of thousands of lives before the successful surge of 2007. But beyond education reform, new entitlements and even war, Mr. Bush's legacy is defined by a titanic increase in the Federal debt, some of which was beyond his control (the recesssion he inherited from Bill Clinton, the economic shock of 9/11) but much of which was completely controllable.The positive results of the Bush tax cuts - relieving the burden on the Federal taxpayers, encouraging corporate investment, the creation of five million jobs and an increase of $188 billion in Federal income tax receipts since 2001 - have been more than offset by runaway Federal spending. Even before the current economic crisis, increased Federal spending was responsible for 90% of the final budget deficit between 2000-2006, according to figures from the Heritage Foundation. Stir in the bailout fever that has gripped the nation and add another $1.1 trillion to the national debt in one year alone which would be scandalous by itself, but we're not done yet. As of this writing, Congressional Democrats intend to offer an $850 billion "stimulus" package for Barack Obama's signature on 20 January that would represent the total national debt for the first 200 years of our existence and push the new total somewhere north of $11 trillion, or $37,377 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Given the Republicans' traditional aversion to this kind of fiscal lunacy and the Democrats' supposed new-found discipline, how did we then get to this point?
First, Mr. Bush and his GOP colleagues in the Congress decided in favor of political expediency very early in his Presidency. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 provided a ready excuse, like, "Spend whatever you need to spend and worry about paying the bill later." There was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Global War On Terror, disaster recoveries from California wildfires to Midwest floods to the forementioned Gulf Coast hurricanes, to the Federal bailouts of Wall Street and the Big Three Detroit automakers. All this spending nullified the benefits of the Bush tax cuts and removed a very important issue from the Republicans' traditional agenda - that they are careful with the people's money. Second, the Democrats and their irresponsible Republican fellows predicted, in their Keynesian fervor, that colossal levels of government spending would spark the economy and generate a new round of prosperity, "priming the pump" as they say. However, the Department of Labor announced recently that unemployment rose to 6.7% in the month of November 2008 and overall job losses have reached 2.7 million since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, indicating that the $120 billion "stimulus" package approved last Spring, the various Wall Street takeovers and the $700 billion TRAP package approved in October have had exactly the opposite effect as intended, deepening the economic stress rather than relieving it. But as I mentioned above, politicians want to be seen as "doing something" and government does nothing better than spend money, though in this case it is somewhat analogous to the alcoholic who tries to kick the habit by going on a binge. It's illogical in the extreme and undeserving of even a shred of respect.
There is a fundamental economic failure at work here. Liberals who complain of high Federal deficits under Republican administrations but simultaneously urge trillions in new outlays to "stimulate" the economy are actually saying that government spending is OK but only as long as they are in charge and implicitly acknowledge that simply blowing money at a weak economy does nothing but weaken it further. They also refuse to consider cutting levels of spending and taxation in order to stimulate the economy, reducing the burden on taxpayers instead of increasing it, since the whole point as far as they are concerned is to grow government, increase its power and influence and increase the people's dependence on it. They see government as a leveler of social and economic differences, taking resources from those who've earned them and giving them to others who have not, reversing the basic unfairness of life at least as they see it. But as I already observed, by proposing $850 billion in additional government spending when $820 billion hasn't worked is like the neighborhood drunk going on a binge to attain sobriety - for all you Democrats out there, aren't you glad you voted for this?
Source: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTVjNzIxZDhjMWNlOGM4Zjg3ODc1MDg0NTliNDhjMTU=
Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm2152.cfm
Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2150.cfm
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
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