By nearly every measure (except abortion), the guy governed like a bonafide liberal.
But don't take my word on it. Here's the take of another....
The most basic Bush numbers are damning. If increases in government spending matter, then Mr. Bush is worse than any president in recent history. During his first four years in office -- a period during which his party controlled Congress -- he added a whopping $345 billion (in constant dollars) to the federal budget. The only other presidential term that comes close? Mr. Bush's second term. As of November 2008, he had added at least an additional $287 billion on top of that (and the months since then will add significantly to the bill). To put that in perspective, consider that the spendthrift LBJ added a mere $223 billion in total additional outlays in his one full term.If spending under Mr. Bush was a disaster, regulation was even worse. The number of pages in the Federal Registry is a rough proxy for the swollen expanse of the regulatory state. In 2001, some 64,438 pages of regulations were added to it. In 2007, more than 78,000 new pages were added. Worse still, argues the Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, Mr. Bush is the unparalleled master of "economically significant regulations" that cost the economy more than $100 million a year. Since 2001, he jacked that number by more than 70%. Since June 2008 alone, he introduced more than 100 economically significant regulations.
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4 comments:
This is what I think will haunt republicans for a long time. Conservatives supported Bush in his first term because of his support of the military and tax cuts, but we disliked the spending. Supported him in his second term to keep continuity in Iraq, as distateful as it was to many.
All the while we held out hope that he would figure a way to curb spending. He had a republican congress did he not??? Yet the republican party completely gave up on its principles with Bush leading the way.
Then to finish the job, in the last 4 months of his presidency he practically turned into Ted Kennedy, leading the way to socialisation of our economy. He was thinking of his legacy, not the country. The republicans have succeeded in trashing the brand with conservatives, and their brand is of course hated by liberals. This, and the full court press that is about to come from the total control by Dems, the party is over, literally the republican party.
Fellow conservatives, I'm afraid we need a new horse. The republican party no longer stands for ANYTHING worthwhile. The dems want to triple the size of the federal government, and all the lameasses in the republican party can offer is to limit it to a mere doubling, and even that is a token gesture that will be dismissed in committee.
The republicans and Bush had the chance for 6 years to cut spending, and had they any balls they would have followed through, and this financial crisis would never have happened.
They have proven they can't deliver on that. Maybe the Libetarian party is the place to go.
This is what cracked me up during the campaign. Obama was actually Bush III and McCain was Clinton III, but both tried to convince the ignorant that they were Reagan III. It was Obama, that actually made the better case and won.
The problem is that conservatives are being hung with the Republican label. The Media and Democrats have convinced the ignorant that Republican = Conservative when nothing is further than from the truth. The "moderates" that took over in '01 (after Tom DeLay was cut loose by them) basically have the Republican Party that they dreamed of -- and look where it is.
People don't want moderates to lead, regardless of what they say, because you get the post-'03 Bush who won in '04 running as a conservative (as did the Dems in '06). As we can see, when the choice is a moderate vs. liberal or conservative, the genuine article wins of either stripe.
You both make excellent and salient points.
When people want to call me a republican, I always correct them and make sure they understand the difference between republican and conservative.
It's hard to watch this current bailout debate and not out right laugh at republicans who are now worried about budget deficits.
Where were these guys 8 years ago?
I could never quite understand the McCain/Bush philosophy of trying to be more liberal than liberals. What did that get them?
Liberals still called them Hitler.
Why not actually scratch the backs of the people who actually supported them instead of blowing the people who hated them regardless?
Finally, I agree with the premise that the GOP is going to be in the wilderness for some time.
All you have to do is see the results here in Ohio. Bush actually garnered more votes than Obama. McCain's failing was simply people refusing to vote for another democrat in the face of one of the most liberal pols in modern history.
Yes. I reluctantly voted for McCain, mainly because I did not want to be a part of an Obama mandate. But...I really was not too disappointed to see McCain and the republicans get swept out. I saw that as almost as bad. It would have sent a message to the republican leadership that: 1) government is the answer to all of our problems, 2) our borders mean nothing 3) the only way to keep power is to out-democrat democrats.
The republicans needed a good ass whoopin and they got it. They need to sit in a timeout for a good 4 or 6 year stint and think about the damage they have done. And when they get tired of being irrelavant they can get back on the record with conservative ideals. Then, and only then, maybe we will let them try to get our vote back and hope we haven't defected to the Libertarians by them.
Ronald Reagan once said, "I never left the democratic party, the democratic party left me." That's how I feel about the republicans on this day.
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