Booze and the Economy

The media is buzzing this week over footage of President Bush explaining our economic woes at a Houston political fundraiser by saying "Wall Street got drunk."

"There's no question about it," Bush told his audience, "Wall Street got drunk -- that's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off the TV cameras -- it got drunk and now it's got a hangover."

True to form, the president prefers simplistic jargon over communicating the complexity of any subject. Also true to form, he refuses to take responsibility for what is occurring on his watch -- a plunging dollar, a mortgage crisis, a dangerously volatile stock market and a squandering of historic surpluses. The best he can do it sum it up, "Wall Street got drunk." But what did happen?

I will let others analyze the failures of the federal regulators under President Bush. This was certainly a major factor in creating this financial crisis. But I can comment on President Bush's reckless tax policy.

The two presidents that preceded President Bush embraced the conservative value of getting revenues and expenditures in line. President George H. W. Bush famously reneged on his "read my lips: no new taxes" pledge in order to address the deficits. This was a big factor in his '92 loss. President Bill Clinton, the victor that year, came to Washington with a Democratic House and Senate and pushed through a revenue package that also addressed these deficits. This helped cost the Democrats control of both houses in '94. It was an earthquake, which would come to be known as the Gingrich revolution. Obviously, both Presidents Bush and Clinton made great sacrifices in order to achieve surpluses.

I was in the Senate in October of 2000 when President Clinton vetoed Republican-passed tax bills of modest amounts because they threatened our surplus. I was also there five months later when President Bush unfathomably promoted a tax cut four times as large as the kind Clinton had vetoed -- a cut of 1.6 trillion dollars. And it passed! President Bush then embarked on an unprecedented spending spree: a prescription drug benefit added to Medicare, an expensive new federal bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security and trillion dollar wars overseas, which are creating a new generation of veterans that will deserve physical and mental care at taxpayers' expense for decades to come. President Bush's first veto was not over unchecked congressional pork but over stem cell research!

The president reversed his predecessors' good, conservative fiscal policies -- responsible stewardship of revenues and expenditures. So who's drunk?

Comments

[jofle]

Nailed it! A man ever in denial and unwilling or incapable of candor. He has set a new standard by which failed Presidents will be judged and will join an infamy of old-world royalty who were similarly unqualified to lead by way of lineage alone.

[skindoggy]

"no new taxes" is the easiest campaign platform.....in our republic, no one wants to pay taxes. But everyone want to spend(can you say earmark? yes, republicans spend too, historically even more than Dems). In my opinion both Bush I and Clinton made hard choices and contributed the country to be in the best financial position this country has seen in modern history when handed over by the Supreme Court to the present group of knuckleheads..... and in as little as 8 years, W. and the Republican brain trust plundered not only the surplus and has put us in the worst financial position in modern history.... but have created a train wreck in the financial markets. I am sure though that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh will of course claim that this was created by the Clinton administration and those spineless Liberals from the left.......
Let's vote for someone different this time......
Skindoggy

[Henry]

Conservative is an honorable component of the American political spectrum. It is a shame that people who have the honorable distinction to be conservative in this country have had their whole philosophy "used and abused" by the likes of the current administration.
When did reckless greed sneak into the conservative makeup?

[Cathexis]

I have to agree, Henry.

I used to be "a conservative." And I know that ...

* Incompetence was never a conservative principle.
* Corruption was never a conservative principle.
* Neither were stupidity, deception, cronyism, militarism, denial, religious fundamentalism, willful ignorance, fiscal irresponsibility, racism, bigotry, treason to Constitution and Country, etc.

The Conservative (and Republican) name(s) were hijacked by people who are merely authoritarians seeking power, and willing to manipulate the fears, prejudices, and gullibility of the masses.

True conservatives, and any "Republicans," who still feel any sense of integrity should be outraged and fighting against such an affront. Then again, most of us are now "Independents."

[jgsuperpants]

And "true" conservatives are probably the least represented group in our political system.