Bush was no fiscal conservative

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  • radonc73

    Marksman
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    Mar 24, 2010
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    Lowell
    I couldn't agree more he was no angel. I still am a little miffed at the Patriot Act myself opened up a can of worms that no one is in a hurry to close except the whole border security thingy that they drag their feet on.
     

    melensdad

    Grandmaster
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    Apr 2, 2008
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    Far West Suburban Lowellabama
    I thought it was OBVIOUS that both of the Bush's were big government types.

    The son may have been a social conservative but neither operated under the concept of limited government or fiscal constraint. However both look like penny pinchers COMPARED to the current Oval Office resident.

    I've never defended Bush (either of them) as good Presidents.
     

    lashicoN

    Master
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    Nov 2, 2009
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    North
    I think it really was a lose/lose. McCain/Palin would probably also have been Bush's 3rd term. I'm pretty sure there was simply a puppet master(s) above Bush and now Obama. The face on the puppet was painted black, so that bought the puppet master a year or two before everyone realized "hey, that's the same puppet, you just painted his face and gave him a TelePrompter!".
     

    TRWXXA

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    Apr 22, 2008
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    Seriously?! You're comparing Obama to Bush?!

    The Obamatard spends money like a coked-up valley girl on Rodeo Drive with her daddy's American Express Centurion Card.

    In less than two years, Barry has racked up more federal debt than all the administrations that came before him, combined. He's on the fast-track to spend more than all of them combined too.

    Bush may not have been a fiscal conservative, but Obama's free-spending ways (with other people's money) make ol' "Dubya" look like Ebenezer Scrooge.
     

    IBTL

    Plinker
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    Jan 19, 2010
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    Lafayette
    One thing is certain, we won't be able to recover from our troubles until we have spending cuts. The only real difference I see between the two parties, fiscally-speaking, is that one lobbies tax cuts and the other does not. BOTH spend money like "daddy's girl with a credit card. Both are taking us to the same destination, the Weimar Republic.
     
    Rating - 100%
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    Dec 17, 2009
    2,489
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    Tampa, FL
    Bush was very entrepreneurial but not necessarily a day to day operations manager. Look at his life. Any time he tried a business that was heavy on day to day operations, it failed. The only way he made money was by assembling deals and selling them, and making massive amounts of money that way. Read into the Texas Rangers deal he put together - it was a heck of a job putting that deal together the way he did, and the way he made money on it was selling the package after assembling it not by running it.

    His presidency was the same. He got Federal Gross revenue up to a historic high after 9/11, but he didn't manage the operations account with the same zeal as he operated money making. So they made a lot of money and spent the heck out of it.

    Obama's problem is he hasn't made a dollar in his life outside of selling ghostwritten autobiographies and fund raising, and he spends the heck out of money. He's like Bush's bad fiscal management without Bush's understanding of making money.
     

    rambone

    Grandmaster
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    Mar 3, 2009
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    'Merica
    Seriously?! You're comparing Obama to Bush?!

    Yes.

    Bush set a new all-time spending record. So did Obama. Spending needs to be pulled back dramatically before we go bankrupt.

    Bush thought spending tax-payer money on government "stimulus" projects would boost the economy. So did Obama. The government cannot stimulate anything without first hurting someone else.

    Bush thought bailing out companies with tax-dollars would somehow fix their failed business-models. So did Obama. Companies need to fix their wild spending problems and leave the taxpayers out of it.

    Bush engaged us in years of expensive foreign wars. So is Obama. And leaving 50,000+ troops on the ground can hardly be considered the end of a war.

    Bush signed a law that increased the government's involvement in the health care system. So did Obama. The government's involvement is what makes the system so expensive.

    Bush created new government agencies. So did Obama. Government needs to shrink drastically to constitutional levels.


    Defending Bush in any way, shape, or form will be a fruitless endeavor. Bush and Obama are both statists. People need to back up and realize that Obama is one tyrant in a long line of tyrants. They are all front-men & fall-guys for the folks behind the scenes, taking this country on a path to destruction. The names change, the course stays the same.
     

    spec4

    Master
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    Jun 19, 2010
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    NWI
    So would any of the Bush bashers here have preferred the alternative? Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04? While I think Bush could have done better in some areas, the reality is we could have had Gore or Kerry. Now what would those clowns have done to us compared to Bush?
     

    rambone

    Grandmaster
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    Mar 3, 2009
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    'Merica
    So would any of the Bush bashers here have preferred the alternative? Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04? While I think Bush could have done better in some areas, the reality is we could have had Gore or Kerry. Now what would those clowns have done to us compared to Bush?


    I think the country is given 2 impossible choices in this 2 party system. Bad, and worse. No, I'm sure as hell not suggesting Gore or Kerry would have been better. Frankly they are all globalists, some are just globalists on steroids.

    Option #1 will poison you; Option #2 will stab you. Who do you choose? Try Option #3, Ron Paul.

    We need to be intellectually honest with ourselves here. Bush was NOT conservative. He grew government beyond anyone's wildest dreams. If you consider yourself conservative, you have nothing to gain by trying to justify George Bush & his government-growing rampage. A true Conservative needs to point out the phony Conservatives... otherwise ALL conservatives look ridiculous.
     

    Pocketman

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    Aug 11, 2010
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    So would any of the Bush bashers here have preferred the alternative? Gore in '00 and Kerry in '04? While I think Bush could have done better in some areas, the reality is we could have had Gore or Kerry. Now what would those clowns have done to us compared to Bush?

    We have no idea what Gore or Kerry would have done. It's a moot point. Sort of takes us back to the lesser of two evils dilemma.

    I don't think this is so much about Bush bashing as trying to set the record straight. Although there are blogs and conservative postings about Obama spending more than all the previous presidents combined, there are no hard numbers to back that up. His first year in office was under Bush's prepared budget. We have no idea how much has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was W who signed the TARP legislation authorizing the initial $700 billion bailout. Just last night at the University of Texas, George W. Bush said "It wasn't that hard for me, just so you know. I made the decision to use your money to prevent the collapse from happening."

    During the George W. Bush presidency, U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP rose from 56% to 83%.

    I am not defending or condemning either president. It's my position that simply getting Obama out and/or Republicans in will not solve stop the spending.
     

    TRWXXA

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    Apr 22, 2008
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    I see what you did there. How much was a loaf of bread when Washington was in office?

    How does this compare to the Bush years?
    The Obamatard took all the debt racked up under 8 years of the Bush administration, and promptly doubled it.

    Now, if you want to use the Al Gore method of statistical analysis (the notorious, "hockey stick" graph), it means that at the end of 4 years, the Obamamama administration will create a debt that is 6 1/3 times what he started with.

    If the unthinkeable happens, and the Commie-in-chief is re-elected to a second term, his legacy will be a national debt that is over 40 times higher than what the Bush administration left us.

    If any Obama defenders want to fault my theory... Just remember that Al Gore got a Nobel Prize for this very same mathmatical application. So it MUST be true!! :D
     

    indykid

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    Jan 27, 2008
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    Westfield
    People have to remember that when George the Second took office there were several more buildings standing in New York City and several thousand more people alive.

    That said, Homeland Insecurity is an abomination and waste of money. We already had too many agencies running thing that wouldn't talk to each other. Just what we needed was more. And then we got the airport Nazis and all the expense, not to mention loss of freedoms. Bush didn't have to spend as much as he did, but he did and I won't defend his wasting of money.

    In Bush's defense, I do remember him early in his first term trying to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, only to be shot down for doing so. It would have been interesting if he had let some of the banks fail, and not given out our money to save them. Pure capitalism would have been interesting.

    During the first "Great Depression" there were a lot of failures, and the president at that time spent money to make make things better only to make things worse. We survived that one. It seems we don't learn from history, but I am sure this great country will survive the second great depression and what ever Bush did and obama-messiah is doing.

    obama-messiah made the best of the worst in his seeming attempt to destroy what was left. His overspending has no excuse.
     

    Son of Liberty

    Marksman
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    Jul 7, 2009
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    Yes.

    Bush set a new all-time spending record. So did Obama. Spending needs to be pulled back dramatically before we go bankrupt.

    Bush thought spending tax-payer money on government "stimulus" projects would boost the economy. So did Obama. The government cannot stimulate anything without first hurting someone else.

    Bush thought bailing out companies with tax-dollars would somehow fix their failed business-models. So did Obama. Companies need to fix their wild spending problems and leave the taxpayers out of it.

    Bush engaged us in years of expensive foreign wars. So is Obama. And leaving 50,000+ troops on the ground can hardly be considered the end of a war.

    Bush signed a law that increased the government's involvement in the health care system. So did Obama. The government's involvement is what makes the system so expensive.

    Bush created new government agencies. So did Obama. Government needs to shrink drastically to constitutional levels.


    Defending Bush in any way, shape, or form will be a fruitless endeavor. Bush and Obama are both statists. People need to back up and realize that Obama is one tyrant in a long line of tyrants. They are all front-men & fall-guys for the folks behind the scenes, taking this country on a path to destruction. The names change, the course stays the same.


    My only issue with your statement is the foreign war part, you cant compare leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq to the massive amount of money bush pumped into that country and war.
    Furthermore, Obama inherited that war and now has an obligation to finish it.
    Just like we all do as a nation, since it is our fault we went there to begin with. By our I do mean the citizens of our country, most of us knew the WMD's were bogus, and even if they weren't I would at least like to believe that the majority of us would've liked to get Bin laden first and foremost.
     
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