Bush was no fiscal conservative

[kingnereli]

You must be quite pleased with the state of the country then.

I certainly didn't say that. All I said was that I don't mind the money Bush spent on the current wars as I thought going to Iraq and Afghanistan were noble causes. My point is that while I too believe spending has been out of control for quite some time (I don't like TARP or any bailout) when you are talking to conservatives about conservatism it is the social issues that will get the nod. That is where Bush and Obama are vastly different.

 

[mrjarrell]

The Clintons started the health care BS. You can't Veto everything if you want the funding for the military passed. There is a lot more bargaining that goes on in this than meets the eye.

Hillary care never made it past the meeting stage. Health care legislation goes back to the formation of medicare and medicaid. Bush imposed a healthcare mandate on us that will indenture our children to the whims of the elderly for ages to come and cost us trillions. Obama just continued on that fine tradition.

 

[dwagner3701]

The only thing that I am aware of that was passed under Bush was the part "D" suppliment to medicare for drugs.

 

[rambone]

A rather large number of them. Too many to list but I'll give you a few. Religious freedom, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, keeping drugs illegal and more. Basically, if the only two choices for this country were rich and immoral or poor and moral I would choose the latter.

I have to say, "social conservatism" is nothing more than Big Government social control. These types of laws only add to the size and magnitude of government. I know you already said you don't mind it, but most conservatives are not in favor of big, expensive government.

Religious freedom is not of much importance to the social conservative. The ones who rally for government to block the construction of a mosque on private property, for example, aren't big fans of it.

Gay marriage; who is served by keeping gay couples from sharing property rights and getting tax breaks? Clearly they are going to live their lives with or without your permission. They should be treated fairly in they eyes of the law. I don't see who wins when we let the government selectively grant these contractual rights to some and not others.

The 40 year war on drugs? There are more drugs on the streets than when there were no drug laws. The difference is that today it costs the taxpayers billions of dollars and the numerous excuses that our police have to infringe our rights and the 4th amendment. And we have more of our citizens in prison than the communist chinese do, with their much larger population.

So I can't get behind any of that stuff. In my religion it is immoral to grow government, since Big Government killed the guy who started it. And I'd say the fiscal stuff ought to trump your desire to enforce morality on people. If we don't straighten out our finances, we won't have a country left to debate over.

 

[Lex Concord]

Wasn't my fault we went to Iraq. I, and many other people spoke out against that particular bit of adventurism before it even got off the ground. Spoke out against it while we were there, too. Didn't enable it by voting for Bush either. I don't buy into collectivism, nor do I buy into collective guilt.

^^^
This...sorry, out of rep for you

 

[Lex Concord]

Except for that TRILLION DOLLAR health care thing that we're now on the hook for. They don't call it "Bushcare", do they? Only Obama gets to be the eponym for that stupid and expensive piece of... legislation.

No, Medicare Part D is Bushcare. Obama needed his own legacy in socialized medicine.

 

[Lex Concord]

Folks while this is amusing, I think we're missing the bigger point of it all.

People can biotch about Bush all they want, the first six years of his presidency spending was not that bad.

The last two years of Bush's term and the first 19 months of Obama has been a Democratic controlled Congress.

Bush couldn't stop them,

Why, did somebody white out the definition of "Veto" in his copy of the Constitution

When he didn't stop them, it was a choice, for whatever reason; they did NOT (and still don't) have a veto-proof majority.

 

[SnowCountry]

Bush asked for and got the insane "American Dream-Own Your Own Home" that started Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He also kept Allen Greenspan at the Federal Reserve, the same guy who brought on the housing crises with 1% interest rates for for the 5 years 2000-2005. Then Bush says that the govt. will back up all of this debt paper. That is when the frugality gloves came off. Everybody was sucking up nearly free money that was borrowed from the rest of the world and then Kaboom! the whole debt and consumption crises hit. You see economies do not grow due to consumption and debt. they get strong and grow due to savings and production. The US has already lost it's once powerful manufacturing base. We are broke. Just plain broke. We went from the most powerful production based creditor economy to the largest debtor nation in just the last 40 years.

Bush and Greenspan began this alcohol frenzy that got Wall Street, banksters and US Citizens "liquored up", drunk on free money and they went nuts. AAA credit ratings on junk mortgages, US Citizens in a feeding frenzy, many of them bought homes they could not afford, then using there homes as their personal ATM's, borrowing more.
It was all a house of cards as ALL of the money was borrowed. Then came the day of reckoning when the debts came due in October of 2008. So what does Bush do then? He rolls out TARP and bails out his alcoholics he and Greenspan got drunk and delays the day of reckoning, all again on borrowed money. Obama then comes along and says Bush is driving us all and our economy off a cliff. He then gets behind the wheel and shoves the debt accellerator to the floor.

I have studied hyperinflation and we are headed in that direction. 13.6 Trillion and counting. That amount does not include Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Those three push the debt to over 100 Trillion. A Trillion dollars is the equivalent of a stack of $1000 bills 67.8 miles high.
We are doomed as we can only pay this back by printing money. We will either default on this debt or print and print and print until the dollars in circulation become worthless.