StudyGrowKnow

Setting the Record Straight on Bush and Obama

August 20, 2010 at 5:54 PM 1 comment

I came across a blog by Bruce R. Hough in which he presented facts to set the record straight about President Bush.  Since most liberals and Democrats enjoy blaming Republicans (and often, vice versa), I’m freely borrowing from Hough’s blog and reprinting some of it here (from which he borrowed from Ed Gillespie who wrote an article on RealClearPolitics, in 2008).  Will it matter?  Probably not, because people like to see things the way they see things.

Let’s look at some facts and feel free to pull them apart any way you like, in order to make your viewpoint correct.

Myth 1: The last eight years were awful for most Americans economically and President Bush’s deregulatory policies caused the current financial crisis.

• The U.S. experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth – 52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created during the Bush Administration This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007.
• From 2000 to 2007, real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion dollars.  In the same period, real after-tax income per capita increased by more than 11 percent, and there was a 4.7 percent increase in the number of new businesses formed.
• The current crisis: The President and his economic team have taken unprecedented actions to stabilize the financial sector and avert a collapse.  In April 2001, three months after taking office, the President warned in his first budget that the size of the two GSEs were a “potential problem” that “could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.” In 2003, the Administration began calling for a new GSE regulator, and over the next five years, the Administration continued to call for GSE reform only to be accused by Democrats in Congress of creating artificial fears and advocating for ill-advised proposals.

Myth 2: President Bush’s tax cuts only benefitted the wealthy and were paid for by sacrificing investments in health care and education.

• There are not 116 million “wealthy Americans,” but that’s how many taxpayers benefited from the President’s tax relief. The across-the-board tax cuts provided tax relief to every American who pays income taxes, created a new bottom 10 percent bracket rate, doubled the child tax credit to $1,000, and actually increased the share of the Federal income tax burden paid by the top 10 percent of individual earners from 67 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2005.  Furthermore, this Administration removed 13 million low-income earners from the income tax rolls completely.
• President Bush provided more than 40 million Americans with better access to prescription drugs by creating the market-based Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.  And it is one of the rare government programs that actually costs less than expected. Projected overall program spending between 2004 and 2013 is approximately $240 billion
• lower, nearly 38 percent, than originally estimated, thanks to the market-oriented principles included at President Bush’s insistence.
• Federal spending on education has increased nearly 40 percent under President Bush.
• Pell Grant funding nearly doubled during the Administration, which is expected to help more than 5.5 million students attend college in the 2008-09 school year, 1.2 million more students than were assisted by Pell Grants in the 2001-02 school year.

Myth 3 and 4: The President’s “go it alone” foreign policy ruined America’s standing in the world and The war in Iraq caused us to “take our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan and with al Qaeda.

• The United States acted with a multilateral coalition of partner nations to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq after he failed to comply with the will of the international
• community, including numerous United Nations Security Council Resolutions.
• In Afghanistan, approximately forty countries are currently deployed with American forces, including every one of our NATO allies.
• The President also created a worldwide coalition of more than 90 nations to combat terrorist networks by sharing information, drying up their financing, and bringing their leaders to justice. Furthermore, the Administration established the Proliferation Security Initiative, which now includes more than 90 nations.
• The President successfully pushed for expanding NATO membership, generated international pressure on Iran to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, and organized the Six-Party Talks, which have resulted in North Korea committing to give up its nuclear weapons and abandon its nuclear programs.
• The United States has provided nearly $32 billion for security, political, and economic development assistance and the international community has provided more than $55 billion to Afghanistan since 2001.

Myth 5: This Administration has been bad for the environment and ignored the problem of global warming.

• From 2001 to 2007, air pollution decreased by 12 percent, and fine particulate matter pollution is down 17 percent since 2001. Ethanol production quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to 6.5 billion gallons in 2007, wind energy production has increased by more than 400 percent, and solar energy capacity has doubled. In 2007, solar installations increased more than 32 percent and the U.S. produced 96 percent more biodiesel (490 million gallons) than in 2006. The Administration also provided nearly $18 billion to research, develop, and promote alternative and more efficient energy technologies such as biofuels, solar, wind, clean coal, nuclear, and hydrogen.
• This Administration has improved and protected the health of more than 27 million acres of Federal forest and grasslands, protected, restored, and improved more than three million acres of wetlands, and established the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the world’s largest fully protected marine conservation area (nearly 140,000 square miles).
• This administration has invested more than $44 billion in climate change-related programs.

And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.

I’m sure if you disagree with those facts listed, you’ll find someway to cast doubt on them.  That’s your right certainly, but when you attempt it, please make sure that you are actually looking at facts, not someone’s spin.

One poster over at Hough’s site added to this by stating the following, which I thought worthy of repeating here:

“January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress:

“At the time:

“The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77

“The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%

“The Unemployment rate was 4.6%

“George Bush’s Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION!

“Remember the day…
“January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.

“The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?
“BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!!!

“THANK YOU DEMOCRATS for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment… to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOS! (BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie – starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy).

“And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac????

“OBAMA

“And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie???

“OBAMA and the Democratic Congress

“So when some one tries to blame Bush…

“REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007…. THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!” Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving.” [1]

Not that any of these facts matter, because Liberals, Democrats and the like will continue to blame Republicans for all ills.  President Obama recently stated that the Republicans are the ones who want to fool with Social Security, etc.  It’s politics as usual in Washington, but facts are facts.  The only way to avoid the facts is to either ignore them, or rewrite them.

We need to remind ourselves how much President Bush’s policies benefited the citizens of this country.  I cannot wait to see how the history books are written when highlighted the Obama years in the White House…

[1] http://brucehough.blogspot.com/2009/04/setting-record-straight-on-george-w.html

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