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Bush's Presidency

How do You rate George W. Bush's Presidency?

  • He's The Best President We've Ever Had

    Votes: 3 3.7%

  • He Was One Of The Best

    Votes: 6 7.3%

  • He Was Pretty Good

    Votes: 8 9.8%

  • He's Alright

    Votes: 6 7.3%

  • He Was Kind Of Bad

    Votes: 13 15.9%

  • He Was One Of The Worst

    Votes: 35 42.7%

  • He Was The Worst

    Votes: 11 13.4%
  • Total voters
    82
Grateful Heart said:
I'm not sure which idiots you're referring to. One of the largest concerns and criticisms of Bush among conservatives over the past years has been his irresponsible fiscal policy and expansion of government. Some have justified it due to the war. But most of us have protested deficit spending and greater government involvement in our lives. Deficit spending is what ultimately cost George Sr. the election in 1992. Deficit spending galvanized a large number of conservative-leaning independents to vote for Ross Perot, allowing Clinton to win election with only 43% of the popular vote. Deficit spending is one of the galvanizing factors behind the Ron Paul movement last year.
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The idiots are the ones that STILL sip the Kool Aid while towing the GOP company line. And there are tons of them here in Dixie. The actually believe the crap the GOP is spewing.

Most Americans are keenly in tune with deficits and vote accordingly.
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If that's the case, then the people are clearly in favor of them because they continuously elect Presidents and Legislators who spend like drunken socialists.

I think this will prove to be Obama's Achilles' heel. He's got no plan to reduce the deficit... other than to raise taxes, something he's been pretty quiet about up till now. Taxes are not a pill American's like to swallow.
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What Americans want, based on their votes, is a Nanny state paid for using money borrowed from China. Election results don't lie.
 
wbreese91 said:
You know you might have a valid point if you used facts and real names. None of us even knows what you are talking about. Sure, we could decode it if we really wanted to, but personally the lack of facts to back up your statement lead me to believe it wouldn't be worth my time.
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Everyone knows who The Rapist President and The Idiot President are. They're the only two Democrats to foul the White House since The Man Who Had The Decency To Quit resigned for the sake of the nation.

The Rapist President has no decency, naturally.
 
wbreese91 said:
I will not pretend that debt did not increase under Republican Presidents, however, you also have to consider that inflation was also under way during most of these cases. In Reagan's case, he had planned to give the welfare program to the states and planned his budget accordingly. Obviously this did not happen, resulting in an increase. Bush Sr. had the gulf war and rising welfare and social program costs, Bush Jr. had the same. Clinton never balanced the budget, though he did manage to spend less by cutting the military. Just an FYI, to Congress "balanced" means the government is racking up less debt than it did last year.
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The thing is, and the point I am making, is when it came to balancing the budget, the presidents, none of them got it done, though Clinton got closest. I don't care about the excuses, it did not get done. Republicans accuse democrats of ignoring all these factors, but forget far too many themselves. Then we get into a hyper-partisan argument with namecalling. Scarecrow will be along before long to prove my point on that.
 
Grateful Heart said:
We can quibble over what forces and policies were at work during the 90s that resulted in lower deficits. There's no doubt that under the Bush years, deficits grew by leaps and bounds. What's most frightening is looking at the projected figures under Obama...
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I used start and end of term numbers for a reason. Obama is an incomplete so far. Hopefully, he will improve, though I have pretty strong doubts. He does not seem to have figured out that sometimes you just have to hold off on doing things(health care for example).

I was in the Pentagon during the BRAC. I watched as our forces were cut about 30% across the board. I watched as everyone struggled to develop charts and graphs demonstrating that readiness was 'not impacted.'

If your family budget were cut 30%, are you seriously telling me that would have no impact on your capabilities to function? If your business budget and workforce were slashed 30%, do you think your business would be able to handle the same workload through streamlining?

:doh
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30 % budget cut is one thing, but did the base closures actually make the country less safe? Come to think of it, the military Bush had to use for his two wars, at least at first, was the legacy military from Clinton, and it proved to be very effective.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Everyone knows who The Rapist President and The Idiot President are. They're the only two Democrats to foul the White House since The Man Who Had The Decency To Quit resigned for the sake of the nation.

The Rapist President has no decency, naturally.
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Ah, I was right, here is Scarecrow proving my point. Hi Scarecrow :2wave:
 
stekim said:
The idiots are the ones that STILL sip the Kool Aid while towing the GOP company line. And there are tons of them here in Dixie. The actually believe the crap the GOP is spewing.
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I agree. The problem is the Democrats are very similar. So we have very few in Washington who really represents us.

stekim said:
If that's the case, then the people are clearly in favor of them because they continuously elect Presidents and Legislators who spend like drunken socialists.
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Because they give us little choice. Between the media making anyone outside of the two party system seem like a joke and the cool aid drinkers on both sides, we are stuck with little real choice.

stekim said:
What Americans want, based on their votes, is a Nanny state paid for using money borrowed from China. Election results don't lie.
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We have the government we deserve, no doubt.

PS Your avatar is to creepy for words.
 
Redress said:
Since you still seem afraid to answer, lets look at some numbers I found. Let's use debt a a purer metric. I will use the same source celticlord did to get his numbers.

Carter: 9/30/77 698,840,000,000
9/30/81 997,855,000,000

About a 1/3 increase in 4 years.

Reagan: 9/29/89 2,857,430,960,187

That is almost triple, in 8 years.

Bush the elder: 9/30/93 4,411,488,883,139

Not quite double in 4 years.

Clinton: 9/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200

about a 1/3 increase in 8 years.

Bush the younger: 9/30/2008 10,024,724,896,912

Not quite double in 7 years. The 8th year should take it to over double.

Spin it how you want, but under democratic presidents, debt has risen at a lower pace prior to Obama than under republican presidents. What Obama's numbers will look like, I am afraid to guess.

The further truth is that it is not even close. Debt has risen dramatically faster under republicans than democrats.
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Ah, well, let's look at those numbers more realistically.

Using your numbers, you show The Great President increasing the Idiot's deficit by a factor of

2,857/998 = 2.86.

The Great One fixed the Idiot's destruction of the United States, fixed the military, and won the Cold War. Not a bad investment.

The Oath Breaker's deficit is claimed to be

(4,411 - 2857)/ 998 = 1.56

times the Idiot's baseline, but he had to clean up the mess The Party of Greed and Treason made in the Savings and Loan industry, which makes up a fair fraction of that 1.6T total.

The Rapist rang up a deficit of

(5,807 - 4,411) / 998 = 1.40

However, this number is certainly based on the false and illegal accounting gimmicks already addressed and is clearly a basement number. Also, The Rapist didn't have anything to show for all the excess spending, just a stained blue dress.

And then there's the Bumbling Liberal President, who had to fight two wars and recover from the Rapist's President's recession,

(10,025 - 5807)/998 = 4.23

Which is pretty high, but then again, there's the aforementioned two wars, and the fact that he's a liberal to contend with.

Let's look at your Messiah, shall we?

A first years deficit of 2.3 trillion dollars, with the year half-over and he's not even nationalized health care yet, which will cost another 1.5 trillion dollars easily, for a one year deficit of

3.8 trillion dollars/998 = 3.81 for only one year in office, and the American people have not benefitted in the least and will not ever benefit from this wasted money.

Lets see, if The Messiah runs true to form, over the succeeding three years that boy will run up at least 400,000,000,000 in deficit each year, and I'm being nice to the boy.

(3,800 +3x400) = 5,000 / 998 = 5.01

Or, better yet, let's normalize the numbers to an annual basis.

The Idiot: 998 / 4 = 250
The Great One: (2,857 - 998) / 8 = 232.4
The Oath Breaker: (4,411 - 2857) / 4 = 388.5
The Rapist: (5,807 - 4,411) / 8 = 174.5
The Bumbling Liberal: (10,025 - 5807) / 8 = 527.3
The Messiah: 5,000 / 4 = 1250.0

The Idiot.s Baseline: 250 / 250 = 1.0
The Great One: 232.4/250 = 0.93 (Oh. Lookie! Went Down from Baseline)
The Oath Breaker: 388.5 / 250 = 1.554
The Rapist: 174.5 / 250 = 0.70 (Went down, but with nothing to show for it)
The Bumbling Liberal: 527.3 / 250 = 2.11
The Messiah: 1250.0/250 = 5.00

Those be da numba's in da perspec-tive.
 
Blackdog said:
I agree. The problem is the Democrats are very similar. So we have very few in Washington who really represents us.
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Well yes, they are quite similar. But I give the Democrats props for the fact they aren't claiming to be for small government. They are bad, sure, but in this regard they are not also hypocritical scum bags like the GOP. It sucks that you are peeing on me, but let's not call it rain to add further insult.


Because they give us little choice. Between the media making anyone outside of the two party system seem like a joke and the cool aid drinkers on both sides, we are stuck with little real choice.
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Can't argue with that.

We have the government we deserve, no doubt.
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Indeed.

PS Your avatar is to creepy for words.
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That's actually a picture of me.
 
Redress said:
In how many cases did the congress have a veto-proof majority of one party?
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Under Republican dominance, never in the time frame discussed.

Redress said:
Mention the deficit under Clinton, and they bring up the fact that there was no real surplus, but forget that there was a reduction of deficit.

Notice the pattern there?
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Yes, people who point out the fact that the alleged surplus the supporters of the Rapist President keep pointing didn't exist are the honest ones.

Now the dishonest ones are trying to move the goal posts since if the surplus these people are alleging didn't actually happen, and REAL accounting rules were applied to the federal government, what would the deficit the Rapist created actually be? Since that number is not known, it's improper to claim that the deficit "went down".
 
Keep making those excuses Scarecrow!
 
Redress said:
Our right wing friends want to deny credit for any lessening of the deficit under Clinton,
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Young boy?

That's not important.

Explain the need The Rapist had for having a deficit. What was accomplished by that borrowing? What Constitutionally authorized items were purchased thereby? How were the American people, that means the taxpayers, not the parasites, assisted in their pursuit of happiness by having their children's money indebted thereby?

No one denies that looking at the magical figures published by Washington that Clinton's deficit was smaller than the others.

It was never negative.

Do you have the maturity and honesty to understand what that means? I'll tell you.

It means that Clinton increased the national debt.

So what's the big deal, you're cheering because little teenager didn't run up the credit card quite so much, but did nothing to pay it down?
 
Redress said:
The thing is, and the point I am making, is when it came to balancing the budget, the presidents, none of them got it done, though Clinton got closest. I don't care about the excuses, it did not get done. Republicans accuse democrats of ignoring all these factors, but forget far too many themselves. Then we get into a hyper-partisan argument with namecalling. Scarecrow will be along before long to prove my point on that.
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Once again you are historically and constitutionally wrong; The Republican Congress under Clinton did indeed finally "balance" a budget and as we entered 2000 had a surplus.

Presidents have NOTHING to do with spending. They can sign bills or veto them, but they are not responsible for spending; that is for the Congress.

I am always amused when people give Clinton credit for what a Republican Congress did for the American people for the first time in five decades.
 
stekim said:
Well yes, they are quite similar. But I give the Democrats props for the fact they aren't claiming to be for small government. They are bad, sure, but in this regard they are not also hypocritical scum bags like the GOP. It sucks that you are peeing on me, but let's not call it rain to add further insult.
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Welcome to "compassionate conservatism" :surrender

stekim said:
That's actually a picture of me.
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:shock: :bolt
 
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Truth Detector said:
Once again you are historically and constitutionally wrong; The Republican Congress under Clinton did indeed finally "balance" a budget and as we entered 2000 had a surplus.
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No. It was counting FICA taxes collected as revenues instead of offsetting them against future expenses.
 
Truth Detector said:
Presidents have NOTHING to do with spending. They can sign bills or veto them, but they are not responsible for spending; that is for the Congress.
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Not true. While all spending bills must originate in the house, the fact is the budget is prepared by the President, who submits it to Congress. And that budget is generally passed pretty much as is. So the budget that ultimately gets passed is the President's budget. So he has a hell of a lot to do with it.
 
stekim said:
Well yes, they are quite similar. But I give the Democrats props for the fact they aren't claiming to be for small government. They are bad, sure, but in this regard they are not also hypocritical scum bags like the GOP. It sucks that you are peeing on me, but let's not call it rain to add further insult.
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I am always amused by this argument which basically goes like this; "even though Democrats actually WANT big Government and prefer to TAX and SPEND, I am still going to empower them because they are not as bad as a party that argues for less Government and then by turn of fate as seen in 9-11 actually increase Government. The Democrats better fit my Conservative views of less Government and lower taxes by increasing ten fold the vastness of Government control and taxes."

Yes folks, when I read tripe like this, I am no longer surprised how complete idiots like Pelosi, Reid and Waxman get elected or how naive imbecilic Socialists like Obama get elected President.

The only thing MORE ironic and hypocritical is when Democrats who RAILED about the Bush deficits now rabidly support a President and Congress who make the Bush deficits seem trivial in comparison.
 
stekim said:
Not true. While all spending bills must originate in the house, the fact is the budget is prepared by the President, who submits it to Congress. And that budget is generally passed pretty much as is. So the budget that ultimately gets passed is the President's budget. So he has a hell of a lot to do with it.
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The President can ONLY present a budget; he cannot authorize ANY spending, that is the Constitutional authority of the Congress.

During Clinton's Presidency, he wanted to do nothing but RAISE taxes and his efforts to create a vast new increase in Government via the Hillary Health Plan was declared DOA by the Newt Gingrich Congress.

It was the Republican Congress and the "Contract with America" that drove the agenda during Clinton's Presidency. The ONLY cuts Clinton might be credited with would be the gutting of our military and CIA.

This is why under Republican Presidents there were always continued tax increases and budget deficits until Republicans finally took over majorities BOTH houses of Congress, they had Democrat BIG spending majorities in the House and Senate to contend with and could not get a budget passed without compromises.
 
Truth Detector said:
I am always amused by this argument which basically goes like this; "even though Democrats actually WANT big Government and prefer to TAX and SPEND, I am still going to empower them because they are not as bad as a party that argues for less Government and then by turn of fate as seen in 9-11 actually increase Government.
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Well, that's all well and good except for one small thing: I never said anything about empowering any Democrats! So I'm not sure your response is really to my post. It was very passionate and all, but it had nothing to do with my post. I clearly said, in fact, that the Democrats were bad. But when it comes to the area of spending they are not raging hypocrites. The GOP is. Sorry. It's not my fault. Pointing out the obvious is hardly an indictment of me.

.
 
stekim said:
Not true. While all spending bills must originate in the house, the fact is the budget is prepared by the President, who submits it to Congress. And that budget is generally passed pretty much as is. So the budget that ultimately gets passed is the President's budget. So he has a hell of a lot to do with it.
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Explain Tip O'Neill's use of an ambulance to pick up every budget Reagan submitted to Congress.

The reason was all of Reagan's budget were DOA and the Democrats in Congress wrote and passed their own.
 
Truth Detector said:
The President can ONLY present a budget; he cannot authorize ANY spending, that is the Constitutional authority of the Congress.
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No kidding. But he DOES present a budget, right? Thanks. And those budgets are pretty much stuck to. So again, he sure as hell as does have input. So let's not try and pass the buck because your party does things you don't like. I would suggest you elect better people, but I know that's a long shot.
 
Truth Detector said:
Once again you are historically and constitutionally wrong; The Republican Congress under Clinton did indeed finally "balance" a budget and as we entered 2000 had a surplus.

Presidents have NOTHING to do with spending. They can sign bills or veto them, but they are not responsible for spending; that is for the Congress.

I am always amused when people give Clinton credit for what a Republican Congress did for the American people for the first time in five decades.
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Apparently, republican presidents should have been vetoing more, instead of just blaming democrats.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Explain Tip O'Neill's use of an ambulance to pick up every budget Reagan submitted to Congress.

The reason was all of Reagan's budget were DOA and the Democrats in Congress wrote and passed their own.
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Which he signed! Exactly my point. And whose idea was all military spending that bloated the budget? Tip O'Neill's? Nope. Despite the symbolism, Reagan got his budgets. Just like they all do. He submitted bloated budgets to Congress, they passed them, he signed them. End of story.
 
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