Where were they when Bush was running record deficit, destroying our Constitution and lied us into the war in Iraq?
⢠Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.
⢠Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the â30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.
⢠Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.
⢠Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bushâs encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.
⢠Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).
⢠Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, theyâre now used to herd.
⢠The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.
⢠War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. Itâs become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.
⢠of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.
⢠Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.
⢠Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an âenemy combatantâ to be completely deprived of any rights at all.
⢠Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guardâs whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, âWe stand for nothing.â
⢠No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and itâs still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the futureâ¦
⢠The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizensâ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid youâre not polite to themâ¦
⢠Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.
⢠Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not âevilâ (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasnât a Democrat.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/baby-bush-the-worst-president-in-history/
⢠Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.
⢠Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the â30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.
⢠Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.
⢠Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bushâs encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.
⢠Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).
⢠Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, theyâre now used to herd.
⢠The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.
⢠War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. Itâs become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.
⢠of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.
⢠Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.
⢠Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an âenemy combatantâ to be completely deprived of any rights at all.
⢠Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guardâs whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, âWe stand for nothing.â
⢠No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and itâs still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the futureâ¦
⢠The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizensâ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid youâre not polite to themâ¦
⢠Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.
⢠Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not âevilâ (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasnât a Democrat.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/baby-bush-the-worst-president-in-history/
