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| Home Front: Politix |
| Bush Did It |
| 2009-03-23 |
| VDH in excellent form here. This is from a few days ago so my apologies if this was already posted (although I did a quick scan and it did not pop up). I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did. A little snippet to whet your appetite: The Bush administration was further embarrassed when it boasted that the fundamentals of the economy were "sound" -- although in its prior requests for bailout funds just a few weeks ago, it had ridiculed skeptics who countered that the economy's fundamentals were, in fact, "strong." Meanwhile, columnist Frank Rich complained that "In times of economic crisis here we go again with greedy and failed AIG execs -- buddies of Bush's clueless Wall Street--retread treasury secretary -- using federal money to pay themselves bonuses for their rampant failure. But what do you expect from revolving-door administration officials in bed with the very corporations they used to work for? Get used to more $100-a-pound beef at the 'let them eat cake' White House parties, lorded over by this AIG surrogate who took more than $100,000 in their money for who knows what? Maybe Speaker Hastert can let those GM execs on federal welfare piggy-back on his private jet next time they come to Washington to beg for more of our money. These people have no shame." President Bush had warned the American people that the present recession could last "for years," and that it was analogous to the Great Depression. Yet today, after passage of his new stimulus bill, his team suddenly reversed course, reassuring the nation that we might see an end of the recession by year's end. Then Bush himself berated the American people, charging that they had become too pessimistic about the economy. Veteran journalist Bill Moyers sniffed, "These right-wing mythographers seem just to make this stuff up as they go along." When critics pointed out that the president had once promised an end to earmarks, and yet had signed more than 8,000 into law, he countered by promising not to do it again in 2010. Yet more trouble ensued when Bush increased the budget's red ink from $500 billion to $1.7 trillion -- after promising a new age of fiscal sobriety. "We inherited this recession from the Clinton administration," Bush countered, "and if we're going to offer real change, there is going to be some pain in order to get things right again. You have to borrow and spend to save and cut -- anyone knows that." |
| Posted by:eltoroverde |