The Bush Legacy

[chrisrobin]

A very dishonest list. 1. A tax surplus is by definition an excess of taxation. After Reagan and Bush ended the cold war, a lost of expenses were freed up. After 9/11 the economy plunged, and was turned around by the Bush tax cuts. The economy stayed strong until the Democrats took the Senate and the economy collapsed.
2. Guantanamo is the best solution to a difficult problem, as proven by the fact that Obama has not found a better solution.
3. The most dishonest item is the claim that mortgage lending was unregulated. At that time every bank had an entire book shelf of regulations, with two separate regulatory agencies making periodic examinations of their lending records to be sure every i was dotted and t crossed. There was actually a separate examination to insure that banks were complying with the Community Reinvestment and related acts which were a big part of the problem. Those laws and regulations required banks to loan to the poor and in minority neighborhoods, as a condition to making good loans. So in order to make good loans, banks made a lot of loans they would have preferred to make. And those loans were individually reviewed by regulators. Then the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to prevent possible inflation. The interest on the variable rate mortgages to marginal borrowers went up. Some loans became non-performing. The regulators required banks to reduce the value of mortgages to reflect higher rates--"marking to market". And, it snow balled. Banks stopped making loans our of fear.
After the fact, it is easy to say different regulations were needed. But it certainly was not a lack of regulation which caused the collapse. IT WAS REGULATION, primarily Democrat law requiring undesirable loans, and requiring the loans to be marked down at the first sign of interest raises.
4. Objectors to fracking are from the environmental fanatics who oppose all energy in favor of some fantasy future in which we will not need oil, or nuclear, or coal. How is it killing people?
5. The States, in passing marriage acts were not "under his administration." The States act independently in such matters.
6. The purpose of NCLB was to impose some objective standards on teachers from without, rather than allowing them to teach willy nilly, whatever they choose. The teachers and their infamous union have opposed it because it does not promote their agenda, of higher and higher salaries and taxation with no accountability.
7. The drug plan has reduced costs of drugs to seniors. It did not shut out generic medications from Canada. Generics are not the problem. The problem are the drugs still in the patent period. They cost enormous amounts of money to develop, get approved and then manufactured. Canada and other countries control drug prices, the US does not. It is more important to allow new drugs to be developed than the prohibit expensive drugs. You cannot kill the goose and still collect the eggs. But Canada controls the price and drug companies have little choice but to sell to Canadian distributors as lower cost. The effect is that Americans have to pay the cost of development and approval.
The big problem is when Canadian companies sell the drugs back into the US at the low price. If allowed to continue, it impairs the ability of companies to develop new drugs. They need some way to recover their investment. Liberals, being silly, think drug companies should spend billions developing a drug, and then sell it cheap. They should not be concerned with profits.

So... when does the excavation on Mt. Rushmore begin?

 

[White Eagle]

Here we go. Jon Stewart has the ideal report on the Bush Lie bury. Worth the watch!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-25-2013/library-accomplished---disasterpiece-theater

Thursday April 25, 2013
Library Accomplished - Disasterpiece Theater
Al Madrigal visits the George W. Bush Presidential Library and aces the test based on the former president's pivotal policy decisions.

 

[Benvolio]

Just a quick note about the nonsense related to pharmaceuticals. It would appear that the amount spent on marketing drugs in the capitalist free market grotesquely exceeds the amount spent on researching new life-saving treatments:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050001

When pharmaceutical companies spend a quarter of their sales totals on marketing, and only 13% on research, it is clear that geese and golden eggs have nothing to do with it.

American citizens lose $57 billion a year that could have gone to research. It means you could turn the industry over to the most inept of soviet-style central planners, wasting $56 billion dollars each year on bureaucratic fuck-uppery and still have an extra billion left over for more research.

Or, you could just take note that medicines cost a third more than they need to and have governments cap the prices accordingly without taking one damn cent away from research. Canadians do not need advertising to know what viagra does. Canadians do not want their chemotherapy being planned out on the basis of which company wines and dines their doctors the best.

Why do you suppose they spend money on marketing? Obviously it is because they want to increase unit sales by informing the public what is available. They are not doing it to waste money or decrease their profits. By increasing the number of units sold, they are able to spread the cost of development over more units and bring down the cost per unit. Put it this way. If it cost a billion to develop a drug and the sell a thousand units, they cannot recover the investment withou charging a million a pill. If they sell a billion units, they can charge a dollar each to recover their invest. But, they have found, they need to advertise to increase the volume. Silly liberals think the advertising expense is wasted, and that the companies would sell as many units without marketing. But they really hate the idea that the companies make a profit, when they do.

 

[CowboyBob]

It's pathetic to see these fools so desperately try to find something positive about this war criminal President. They turn a blind eye to his atrocities. They will never admit they made a mistake in supporting this man and that says a lot about them.

 

[nycguydowntown]

One of his own advisors said on a Sunday morning show---no matter what he does, Iraq was such a disaster and has made the world unsafe and unstable for at least the next 20 years--(-the moron chicken hawk) he can never change that---this coming from someone honest in his administration-- and George Will essentially agreeing with him.

 

[Rolyo85]

I read the article, and I missed the part that actually wrote of a positive legacy Bush has left us. My memory of his 8 years left us with two failed wars, one of which was a criminal invasion that cost the lives of thousands of Americans. After federal incompetence lead to 9/11, Bush's response was to pass the Patriot Act, which was the worst violation of the U.S. Constitution in modern history. Innocent American citizens were wiretapped without warrants as the government overstepped its boundaries. His Supreme Court appointments allowed for the Citizens United ruling, which poured hundreds of millions dollars more into a general election that encouraged corruption through special interests.

Other atrocities of the Bush Administration include:

1. Turning a tax surplus into a massive deficit by passing unfunded tax cuts on borrowed money that benefited mainly the wealthiest in the country.

2. Opening of Guantanamo Bay prison, a legacy unfortunately carried on by Obama to this day.

3. Praised his administration for the housing market boom rather than seeking regulation, leading to on the onset of the worst economic crash since the Great Depression.

4. Slashed Nixon-era environmental protection laws to allow for the unregulated use of hydraulic fracking that is killing people and causing irreparable damage to our environment.

5. Set gay rights back nearly a decade by using the office of the president to promote anti-marriage equality laws and demonized homosexuals. Under his administration, half the states in the Union passed anti-marriage equality laws.

6. Passed the disastrous No Child Left Behind Act. There's not a school district, teacher, administrator, parent, or student in this country that has a good thing to say about this law that punished struggling schools for needing the most help, and guaranteeing all schools to eventually fail its preposterous 100% proficiency standard.

7. Bush's prescription drug plan was a disaster that exasperated rising health care costs that it promised to contain. Rather than benefiting seniors, it boosted profit margins for the health care industry as it shut out generic medications from Canada.

Hush! Don't mention gay issues lest you be accused of litmus testing!

Great post!

 

[Rolyo85]

It's pathetic to see these fools so desperately try to find something positive about this war criminal President. They turn a blind eye to his atrocities. They will never admit they made a mistake in supporting this man and that says a lot about them.

Which is kinda funny considering his own party pretends he doesn't exist. They've stashed him in a dark corner, thumbs in their pockets and whistling casually.

It's also way funny how our right wingers here are more fanatical than the GOP. But of course it makes sense. A very sad sort of sense...

 

[Rolyo85]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

Americans were NOT safe in those 8 years. They lost freedoms, lost their face to the world and they lost their integrity but that doesn't equate to safety.

And yes, I read the article.

 

[CowboyBob]

Which is kinda funny considering his own party pretends he doesn't exist. They've stashed him in a dark corner, thumbs in their pockets and whistling casually.

It's also way funny how our right wingers here are more fanatical than the GOP. But of course it makes sense. A very sad sort of sense...

GWB is an embarrassment to the republican party and do everything they can to keep his name out of the public eye. However sometimes his name and legacy will raise it's ugly head and we're reminded of his disastrous Presidency. It's then when these propagandists scramble to spin and rewrite history in an attempt to make him appear less of a failure. He wasn't even invited to the last Republican Convention. He's a Victorian Cripple..... someone you're ashamed of so you won't talk about him and keep him hidden away.

This "he kept us safe after 9/11" is one of the most ridiculous pieces of propaganda I've ever heard. Why aren't they remembering 9/11 happened under his watch and he ignored the warnings. Iraq was invaded using the "WMDs" lie and the right wing tries to spin that. Demonizing Obama for "expanding the Patriot Act" when they conveniently forget who enacted the thing in the first place.

The collapse of the economy isn't the fault of GWB. It's Obama's fault for not cleaning up the mess as soon as he entered office in 2009.

It's not funny about these right wingers.... it's pathetic to see them make total fools of themselves by defending George W Bush at all. And it's just too fucking bad the OP doesn't like the replies he's received in this thread he started. The truth hurts sometimes.

 

[chance1]

Good that u read it Rolyo

Proof that things can change

You're big on numbers ...... See gun control issues

And I agree on that

The numbers say we're safer since 911

And GWB as chief architect with Obama following (good for him) as the guy we thank

Not denigrate

- - - Updated - - -

Good that u read it Rolyo

Proof that things can change

You're big on numbers ...... See gun control issues

And I agree on that

The numbers say we're safer since 911

And GWB as chief architect with Obama following (good for him) as the guy we thank

Not denigrate

 

[Rolyo85]

I don't think numbers support Bush at all... Not worth the thousands dead in 9/11, the tens of thousands dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the multiple fatalities in attacks on embassies in the Middle East.

And let me ask you - while we're being semi-cordial to each other - is in your opinion the overblown "four dead Americans!" Benghazi fiasco somehow different from all of the similar but much more numerous attacks that occurred during Bush? Because the rest of the 15% never addresses that, and I stead deflect the issue every way they can.

 

[chance1]

Since 911 - that's what prompted the change

Start there please

That's the point

The numbers are people - the countless lives saved by Bush terror apparatus

Since followed by Obama - which should supply YOU with all u need to at least look at fairly if not positively

Benghazi was a major fuck up - for the State Dept which not follow information and for the president who after the fact lied to the American people - for political purposes

 

[Rolyo85]

I wasn't asking for your opinion about Benghazi, but rather how was it different from the attacks during Bush.

Also, is there any data to really support that people have been safer since 9/11? I mean, sounds like all those mythical killings prevented by gun owners. Sorta.

 

[chance1]

I wasn't asking for your opinion about Benghazi, but rather how was it different from the attacks during Bush.

Also, is there any data to really support that people have been safer since 9/11? I mean, sounds like all those mythical killings prevented by gun owners. Sorta.

We were not attacked

That's the point

As for Benghazi your question is silly

The major issue was the whitewashing of it

And a member here who blamed the ambassador himself

That's how sick the thing was

Apologists coming out of the woodwork

In "defense" mode vs "lets find out"

 

[Rolyo85]

It's not silly. I was not here when the Bush attacks occurred. So I want to know is there another reason for the double standard, or is it just intellectual dishonesty?

As for "we were not attacked", it's a very thin ice to walk on. You were also not attacked by aliens. Or invaded by China. You were not seriously attacked during Clinton either. The "you can't prove it's not Bush's achievement since it didn't happen" is sorta... Lame.

 

[White Eagle]

Thanks Rolyo85, You are making more sense than certain people here, the ones who will not accept Ws disastrous admin.

 

[TX-Beau]

We were not attacked

That's the point

As for Benghazi your question is silly

The major issue was the whitewashing of it

And a member here who blamed the ambassador himself

That's how sick the thing was

Apologists coming out of the woodwork

In "defense" mode vs "lets find out"

(emphasis mine)

when in fact much of us owe GWB a debt of gratitude for .....

“He kept us safe.”

 

[rareboy]

Since 911 - that's what prompted the change

Start there please

That's the point

The numbers are people - the countless lives saved by Bush terror apparatus

Since followed by Obama - which should supply YOU with all u need to at least look at fairly if not positively

Benghazi was a major fuck up - for the State Dept which not follow information and for the president who after the fact lied to the American people - for political purposes

BENGHaZI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[chance1]

Thanks Rolyo85, You are making more sense than certain people here, the ones who will not accept Ws disastrous admin.

LOL

says the

"Bush Lie-Bury" source

 

[chance1]

BENGHaZI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think you're compensating (over) with BIG here - what's that about ?

Bush kept the country and the citizens of the UNITED STATES safe

difficult for a foreigner to understand I guess