There was a "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and a "riding for a fall" element to the Republican fiscal policies embraced by the Bush administration---a term my dad used to use when us six kids were misbehaving in ways that would have long-range consequences. The "supply-side" (or "trickle-on-down") economic policies have created long-term DISASTERS but short-term RUSHES of sugar-pill SPURTS or HIGHS every time they have been used (Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, and Bush/Cheney). The problems with these sugar-spurts is that they always CRASH and then DROP us down into a depression that is LOWER than where the economy was at the start before these policies were foisted off on the American people. Deregulation just makes things much worse, removing all consumer protections and all government oversight or checks and balances. GREED, COLLUSION, and massive CORRUPTION became the norm, and we began living as a nation on BORROWED MONEY and BORROWED TIME, outsourcing all our jobs (consumer spending lost, revenues from taxes lost), pushing through UNFUNDED MANDATES to include the revenue-destroying tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 for the MILLIONAIRES and BILLIONAIRES (the top 1.5? and then staging an ILLEGAL invasion of Iraq in 2003---a country that never once attacked the U.S. and was NOT involved even peripherally in the 9/11 attacks. The illegal invasion caused gas and oil prices to SKYROCKET (faked "shortage" with oilmen in the WH), even though we had a GLUT in reserve, and these $4-$5/gallon gas prices ate us alive and absolutely DEVASTATED family budgets, small businesses, and states who relied on tourism for their annual budgets. Things began to IMPLODE. Defaults on bills then mortgages, then came the COLLAPSE of the Bush/Cheney over-inflated and deregulated housing and credit markets which National Public Radio had been PREDICTING since 2005! Next the financial system went into MELTDOWN MODE in 2007, so Treasury Secretary Paulson was SCRAMBLING LIKE MAD to hide the problems, juggling accounts, moving money around in a frantic attempt to stave off the inevitable, until finally in 2008 the entire FINANCIAL SYSTEM had a COMPLETE MELTDOWN, nearly dragging this entire nation down too---and all because of the BAD BAD Republican policies of DEREGULATION, OURSOURCING, UPSIDE-DOWN ECONOMICS (supply-side), and DRUNKEN SAILOR SPENDING FOR SIX YEARS through to 2007, WITH NARY A VETO FROM THEIR LEADER, GW BUSH!
If you only look at surface stuff, you may think you were "living better then than now," but if you probe a bit and look LONG-TERM, you were in greater peril from 2003 through 2008 than you might have realized (unless you are a millionaire of course). Bartlett and Steele (1991) identified the very same devastation from the Reagan/Bush-Bush/Quayle use of these same failed policies that President Bill Clinton was elected to FIX---Remember the collapsed savings and loans industry back then, and the record numbers of homeless families? Krugman (2008) and Picker (2009) highlight the BIG LIE of upside-down economic policies (i.e., "supply-side" and deregulations) in their indepth evaluations of the Bush/Cheney DEPRESSION-like GLOBAL RECESSION...well worth reading.
What the Obama administration has been trying to do is to REBUILD America's manufacturing base by initiating a GREEN ENERGY technologies initiative (now up in 40 of our 50 states), that means new factories and alternative energy American-made products that can be exported to countries around the world. This is SLOW-GOING, but the foundation that is being laid will keep this nation STRONG and also PROSPEROUS for years to come! The closing of a tax-write-off loophole by this administration for corporations that DO outsource (to the detriment of jobs and revenues here at home) should "inspire" quite a few of these greed-driven job-outsourcing companies to RETURN and HIRE AMERICANS...case in point: Chrysler, which was now moved its 800# Customer Service operations back to the U.S. in Utah and Michigan---and they are HIRING! Another example of jobs creation is in Wixom, Michigan, where an idled Ford Motor plant now houses THREE new businesses focused on solar-powered and wind-powered manufacturing...also HIRING. See recovery.gov for more jobs creation nationwide.
GW did not do all of the damage alone---he had LOTS of help with his totalitarian-control big-spending Republicans in the House and Senate, and with his Reagan-era HANDLERS, Rumsfeld, Wolfowicz, Cheney, and Karl Rove.
Answered By: Armchair Goddess #1 - 9/12/2010 |