Cole writes: "It is breathtaking impudence that Republicans should try to campaign on whether we are better off than we were in the last six months of the Bush administration. I can't believe we are even arguing about this. Seriously? The country had fallen off a cliff in the last years of Bush, or rather had been pushed off one by GOP policies."
Is the country better off than it was when George W. Bush passed off the presidency to Barack Obama? (photo: Getty Images)
Top Ten Ways We Are Better Off Than in January 2009
06 September 12
t is breathtaking impudence that Republicans should try to campaign on whether we are better off than were were in the last six months of the Bush administration. I can't believe we are even arguing about this. Seriously? The country had fallen off a cliff in the last years of Bush, or rather had been pushed off one by GOP policies.
- In January 2009 we lost 600,000 jobs. In 2008 over-all, we lost 2.6 million jobs, the most in 6 decades! We're now adding over 100,000 jobs a month.
- Home mortgage foreclosures had spiked 80% in 2008!
- We were at war in Iraq in January, 2009, with 314 American troops killed in 2008 in what had become a fruitless quagmire launched on false pretexts in contravention of international law. The US military is out of Iraq, despite the lobbying of the Republican Party and elements in the Pentagon to try to stay there in the teeth of Iraqi opposition.
- Usama Bin Laden, despite having killed over 3000 Americans on US soil, was still at large and actively plotting further attacks in the US. The Bush administration had closed down the CIA Bin Laden desk.
- In January 2009, US new auto sales fell 37%, the most in decades, and for the first time China sold more cars than America. The major automobile companies were heading for bankruptcy. Obama turned all that around, in the teeth of opposition from people like Mitt Romney.
- Non-hydro renewable energy only supplied 3% of American electricity; now it is nearly 6%, in large part because of Obama incentives. Green energy reduces carbon dioxide emissions and so helps decrease the worst effects of global warming, and its increases US energy inedependence.
- Some 30 million Americans lacked basic health care insurance, who will now be covered, including large numbers of children.
- Our country had betrayed its most basic values by torturing prisoners. Obama called a halt to water-boarding.
- George W. Bush was president.
- Dick Cheney was vice president!
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Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
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We can rightly blame GW Bush and Alan Greenspan for not preventing the Great Recession and the housing bubble. After 3-4 years, Barack has rightly taken ownership of the economy. He acted to prevent it from becoming the Great Depression 2. It seems that most people don't realize how bad the economic situation was and capable of becoming. Too many believe the GOP mantra that it is Obama's fault, while the GOP are doing everything in their power to prolong the slow recovery until after the election. It is the same strategy used by the CIA under Nixon's direction to overthrow the Allende government in Chile in 1971. Now the people of the US are learning what it is like to be on the wrong end of economic warfare.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 !!
That my friend is called wishful thinking. Too many of you low information types will find it hard to pull the Romney lever while holding your collective noses shut.
So give a nod to both.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/06/27/memo-to-media-bush-set-a-timetable-for-withdraw/166835
That's what happens when conservatives get wind of a site with rational people and of course, while 95% of liberals are more rational and intelligent than conservatives and have more open minds as well, not all are brain wizards.
Obama signed an Executive Order shortly after he took office -- your friends, the Republicans in Congress (with help from "blue dog" democrats) passed legislation that REFUSED to fund the transfer of detainees or the closing of the detention center.
It takes a long time after an economy begins to mend for unemployment to go down, EVEN THOUGH employment is rising! More people re-join the labor force in a rising economy and keep the percentages stagnant for awhile. This is an elementary arithmetic issue.
The troops have returned from Iraq and a timetable for their departure from Afghanistan is in place. How long do your Republican "friends" want to stay in these countries? FOREVER!
GM is now once again the largest car manufacturer in the world. Didn't Romney say we should just let the companies go bankrupt?
It must be happy hour some place.
We are still at war in Afghanistan and an undeclared war in Pakistan.
The "Bail-out" (nee robbery) of the fiscally greedy and irresponsible banks was planned in the BUsh administration and BHO permitted it to continue.
The "failures" of Obama have been in not repudiating Bush and all of his errors and the Republicans who were determined to block anything he wanted, even if it had a Republican root, such as the health care plan, Romney promoted for Massachusetts.
To be a Republican is to be a member of GOP (Gear Obstructionist Party).
Guantanamo is not closed because the Republicans would not allow spending money to do it. Unemployment is down, but not nearly as much as it would be if the Republicans hadn't filibustered all 44 bills from the Pelosi congress and refuse to take up the current jobs bill, the auto industry HAS come roaring back, the troops are mostly all home from Iraq, and thank God Obama and the most expert foreign affairs person in Government, Joe Biden are still in office. Nearly every problem we have has been caused by the stupidity of conservative actions with the help of Clinton and the blue dogs. The last rational conservative in government, Barry Goldwater is dead and every single remaining one is bat crap crazy.
Since then, many rescuers have suffered premature deaths because of lung disease caused by exposure to the toxic rubble. (See Michael Moore's "Sicko"), so maybe 3,000 is not an exaggeration.
In an attempt to score political points for your side, with a single stroke of the pen you eliminate the worst crimes in history, or transfer them to hapless followers as being the ones solely responsible.
Pathetic.
Michael Canty was my friend. I had known him from 12. We played D and D together for years. I went to watch his track meets occasionally. As an adult he gave richly to charity and helped others whenever he could. Osama bin Laden killed him, as surely as if he'd held the aircraft controls.
Yes "judge" - I think his death was richly deserved and while I do not celebrate it, I admit it, proudly - I'm human and I am glad that the murderer, yes murderer of my nearly lifelong friend, is dead.
Colbert said he thought it was merely totaling Romney's wealth...
And I think in his Classic-Clinton speech last night, William Jefferson said the the Republicans could righteously point up at the numbers roaring by on the counter and proudly declare,
"We made that!"
People have been living in a "Bubble" for 30 yrs. You can thank the Republicans for your "Bubble" bursting.
About where Eisenhower does, since he's almost a rubber stamp of Eisenhower, but a bit to the right of Ike. Better than Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I & miles above Bush II.
By making it algorithmically worse.
Your IRA should be doing better since the stock market has more than doubled since Obama took office, and under "Obamacare" you will be covered. And overspending is NOT the problem. The only country in the developed world that spends less than we do is Taiwan. The problem is undertaxation of the rich which needs to return to the top marginal rate it was before Reagan destroyed the economy. BTW, we were NOT better off in '84 than in '80. Check out the figures yourself.
We ARE better off now than in '08 and the entire world credits Obama for averting a worldwide depression. One brought on by conservative economic actions.
I can see how life would be stressful for a person who only sees in black and white all the while ignoring the vast shades of grey. The sad part is they drag everyone else down with them, shared ideology or not.
Why because Fox news tells you arent?
Americans will have more money to pursue interests and afford other important things that help the economy. I know my family will.
The social/politica l/economic Anarchy proposed by Republicans isn't designed to help Americans. It's designed to help the wealthy who have ALWAYS hated the idea of giving anyone a chance to compete with them.
The President has claimed the authority to have ANYONE -- including American citizens -- murdered, and all on his own ipse dixit, for whatever secret reasons he may please. No charges, no trial, no due process.
AND he has, in fact, ordered the murders of numerous innocent persons, including at least 2 US citizens.
That and that alone is reason enough for him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
But some mincing sycophants will still vote for him because they like his smile and his sweetie planted a little garden, or because he's (half) Black and they want to show how "enlightened" they are. or because he has a "D" instead of an "R" on his chest
A jackass and his liberty are soon parted. Which is to say the people get the government they deserve.
The readers of RSN appear to be completely divorced from reality. And RSN isn't "news" it's just pro-Democrat propaganda, just as bad and just as false as the corresponding dunghills pro-Republican propaganda.
A wise man once said, "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig."
Therefore, I shall absent myself and leave you all to wallow in the swill of your mindless adulation for a corporate pimp who has out-Bushed Bush in destroying the Bill of Rights.
liberty and justice,
sj
Well said! We - progressives, middle-of-the-r oaders, unionists, radicals - need to look at the president along a spectrum or good and bad. Yes, he's not perfect, but he's frightfully better than what Ryan and Romney stand for.
We should look at the election for what it really is: if Romney/Ryan win, then we've given the greedy Koch's, the absolutists like Rove, and the fear-mongers like Cheney the proof that the Presidency can be bought.
Does anyone remember what Herbert Hoover did to grease the skids for the depression and FDR did to pull us up?
So, you're one of those low information voters who don't realize that the one and only reason the recovery hasn't been vigorous is Republican filibusters. They have been doing so many that every year since Obama took office they've done more than the Democrats did in the previous century.
When we 'look' into the past, we don't see African-America n presidents. We see Norman Rockwell's America - lillywhite and false. When we look into the past, we see all that is 'good' - from a particular point of view. The fact that our progressive mindset is deliberate, and nearly natural for Democrats does not presume the same for Republicans and Independents.
It was a remarkably naive suggestion that Obama made: comparing now to 4 years ago! It is dangerous - not because of the truth, but because nostalgia is a cognitively shallow, emotionally unclear black hole.
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