America For Purchase

Republicans took Control of Congress the last 2 years of the Clinton Administration and continued control of Congress and the White House for another 8 years.  Their decade’s long agenda helped to place America on a downward spiral as Republicans spent America into deficit hell by turning a Democratic budget surplus into what the Wall Street Journal acknowledged was the biggest legacy of the Bush years, the huge deficit he placed on Americans for generations to come.   These Republican policies were and are supported by ‘teabaggers’ and current Republican Congressional members today.Consider:  

• A $236 billion surplus projected to last year’s into the future was turned into a $412 billion deficit, in just four years by George W Bush and the Republican Party including the likes of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Judd Gregg and a host of others. At the time President Bush said “that there was a benefit to the government’s fast-dwindling surplus, declaring that it will create a fiscal straightjacket for Congress; he said that it was “Incredibly Positive News” because it would halt the growth of the federal government.”
• Bush and his Republican cronies used the existing surplus (and the $5.6 trillion surplus projected over the next ten years) as justification for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and big oil companies.
• As the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan spiraled skyward, Bush refused to pay the costs of waging two wars with tax increases or other budgetary offsets, choosing instead to pass along this cost along to the next generations of Americans.
• The result was the government ran a deficit, and paid for some of its biggest expenditures with borrowed money and they lied to the American people claiming in 2007 the Bush administration predicted a $61 billion surplus by 2012, yet they presented a 2008 budget that added $251 billion to the deficit creating the ‘new math’ of the Republican Party.
• George W Bush and the Republican and teabaggers who supported him, presided over the weakest economy in decades. The number of jobs increased by only about 2% during the Bush years, and the gross domestic product grew at just a 2.1% annual rate. It was the worst decade for the stock market, which was down 26% from where it started in 2000.  

And who can forget when Republican war monger, Dick Cheney, dismissed the importance of deficits stating in November 2002 as first recounted by Paul O’Neill, “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

Americans MUST remember almost 7 million jobs were lost (perhaps permanently), 14.5 million were left unemployed, and 6 million out-of-work adults became discouraged and stopped looking for works and are thus not even counted among the unemployed under Bush and the Republican Party.

Under the Republican Party:

• Manufacturing fell to its lowest level in 26 years.
• By the end of the decade, the jobless rate reached a 26-year-high.
• There were 6.5 job seekers per job opening, by the end of the decade.
• “One in five Americans are unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work.”
• Bush finished his term with the worst track record ever on jobs since the government began keeping records in 1939.
• There has been zero net job creation since December 1999.

Despite what Republicans and ‘teabaggers’ would have Americans believe in their effort to rewrite history, Americans MSUT remember the economic meltdown began long before Barack Obama was elected president. Even a cursory historical glance at the facts makes it clear; the deficit that has conservatives so alarmed was created on their watch!

Republicans take a “Do as we say, not as we do” approach to deficits and hide behind falsehoods, deceit and ‘lies’ which many conservatives and ‘teabaggers’ easily buy into.  Republicans have for years have had a strategy to “starve the beast” by intentionally plunging the U.S. into debt, forcing cutbacks in government oversight of corporate and Wall Street behavior such as regulatory oversight, safety inspections and consumer protections.

Of the roughly $11 trillion in federal debt accumulated to date, more than 90 percent can be attributed to the tenure of three presidents: Ronald Reagan, who used to complain constantly about runaway spending and in his two terms Reagan quadrupled the federal debt;  George Herbert Walker Bush, reputed to be one of those old-fashioned green-eyeshade Republicans; and his spendthrift son George “Dubya” Bush, whose trillion-dollar war and irresponsible tax cuts accounted for nearly half the entire burden. Only Bill Clinton temporarily reversed the trend with surpluses and started to pay down the debt (by raising rates on the wealthiest taxpayers).

Republicans and ‘teabaggers’ have been hypocritically attacking President Obama for the budget deficit, which most reality-based Americans knows was created by President Bush. President Obama recognizes “that the problem has to be made worse, with intense deficit spending to lower the unemployment rate, before the deficits can come down.” The 2011 budget does, however, contain significant measures to reduce the deficit over the long term, including imposing new fees on the nation’s largest banks, freezing non-security spending for three years, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on those making over $250,000, but extends tax cuts for middle class families and adds “new tax cuts” for job creation; all of which the irresponsible fiscal Republicans are saying NO to.

Republican Party leader Michael Steele said on February 3, 2010 sticking up for America’s rich said “Trust me, after taxes a million dollars is not a lot of money, this is a country where the median family income is $50,000 a year”.

It is striking to me that the people who dislike trying to fix the budget and create jobs are the ones who these programs are intended to help and many of America’s poorest citizens seem to have a deep emotional attachment to the Republican Party that serves the interests of its richest Americans.

‘Teabaggers’ buy into any talking point by any Republican or FOX News without the slightest bit of investigation of the facts or the use of common sense and giving any thought to the track record of the Republican Party.   They defend big health insurance companies, big oil companies, Wall Street; they support unregulated banks, and do not care that Americans are dying, filing bankruptcy and losing their homes due to the ‘lie’ so easily sold to them by Republicans. Their ‘faux’ outrage and anger is more racial than substantive as it is much easier to spew ‘hate’ than to effect and support legislation which will improve the economy for our families and our children.

Wake Up America!  While the greatest economic war was created and is being pushed by the Republican Party, the people of these United States must stand up for our what is right and just, for bipartisan support from Republicans who will put people over politics or  over their next election.  If they do not, America will continue to fail just as Republicans and ‘teabaggers’ are hoping for.  Democrats and Independents must insist on supporting the issues put forth by President Obama and ‘go it alone’ if Republicans continue the obstruction and lying tactics.  Blue Dog Democrats must be voted out of office as they stand in the way of progress for the American people. Wake Up America!

Filed under: U S Economy