Bush Legacy
I definitely recommend checking out this article by Ed Gillespie detailing some of the statistics of the Bush administration. I haven't seen them spelled out so well.
Some excerpts from the article:
I often get tired of listening to people say, 'Well, president Bush created an incentive to do this, but people are not going to are' Or, 'He created a punishment to doing it, but people are going to do drugs anyway.'
The War on Drugs is succeeding, the War on Terrorism is succeeding, and the Bush tax cuts are succeeding. Obama seems to have reversed many of his earlier views on these issues to agree with president Bush.
Just as Roosevelt continued many of Hoover's depression response policies (and Hoover only got the blame), I'm afraid Bush may be remembered poorly in the short term. This last election was just an artifact of the propaganda media. I think history will recall the Bush administration favorably.
Some excerpts from the article:
The economic growth spurred by tax relief also spurred growth in Federal tax receipts. In fact, the Federal Treasury realized the largest three-year increase of revenue in 26 years, and tax receipts grew more than $542 billion between 2000 and 2007. And yes, much of that money went to investments in health care and education.
...
Despite the heated rhetoric over children's health insurance (S-CHIP) legislation last year, estimates from a 2007 Federal survey show that the number of uninsured children under the age of 18 actually declined by 800,000 from 2001 to 2007. From 2007 to 2008, the number of people covered by affordable and portable Health Savings Account-eligible plans increased 35 percent.
...
From 2001 to 2007, air pollution decreased by 12 percent, and fine particulate matter pollution is down 17 percent since 2001.
...
Some other items that are infrequently mentioned about the real record of the Bush Administration but are worth noting: Teenage drug use has declined 25 percent; in 2007, the violent crime rate was 43 percent lower than the rate in 1998; between 2005 and 2007, the chronically homeless population decreased approximately 30 percent; funding for veterans' medical care has increased more than 115 percent; and as of 2005, the most recent abortion rate is at its lowest since 1974.
And one last fact: Our homeland has not suffered another terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. That, too, is part of the real Bush record.
I often get tired of listening to people say, 'Well, president Bush created an incentive to do this, but people are not going to are' Or, 'He created a punishment to doing it, but people are going to do drugs anyway.'
The War on Drugs is succeeding, the War on Terrorism is succeeding, and the Bush tax cuts are succeeding. Obama seems to have reversed many of his earlier views on these issues to agree with president Bush.
Just as Roosevelt continued many of Hoover's depression response policies (and Hoover only got the blame), I'm afraid Bush may be remembered poorly in the short term. This last election was just an artifact of the propaganda media. I think history will recall the Bush administration favorably.
posted by Matthew Canonicus at
10:14 AM
3 Comments:
Hey Matt,
I read the article, and found too much that provokes a response. I might write a lengthier response later. However, another statistic to note when assessing the Bush precidency is the number of deaths that have been caused by the invasion of Iraq. The estimates i've seen range from 700,000-1.2mil, and the vast majority of those are civilian deaths. If that doesn't send a shiver up someone's spine, I don't know what will!
Hi Tim,
I'm sure you'd have a lot to say. Any time you mention a statistic are always a thousand different factors, and your observation is common enough to find. These numbers (admittedly from a WH counsel) were new to me, so I thought they would be of interest. I confess I am skeptical of the 1.2 mil number and the vastness of the civilians (certainly the IED people were not in uniform).
As for the shivers ... I hope they go up the spine of every tyrant like Saddam. People shudder to contemplate the death penalty ... and that's exactly why the number of violent murders have gone down since the US has reinstituted the death penalty.
Existentially there is an obvious problem with that ... people should obey the law regardless of the consequences, I agree with that objection if you offer it. On the other hand, I think it makes a good analogy to how we are to fear that Supreme Lawgiver who sees every unrighteous act and every lawless thought.
Again, my apologies for the length of my response here. I assume you understand its length has nothing to do with its quality.
Since Bush's approval ratings began going down, I have thought pretty much the same thing: In the short term, he will be thought of as one of the worst Presidents; however history will prove him to be one of the greatest.
He made some tough decisions that kept terrorist out of our country for seven years. I only hope that the next President can continue to trend.
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