Republicans and TeaBaggers seem to have trouble remembering any history that was in effect before January, 2009, so I am covering a few points to help them out.
- The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. Bush and company spent 150 Billion dollars to give most taxpayers checks for $300, just five months before the presidential election. Three months after the checks arrived, the economy collapsed.
- The war in Iraq. The Bush Administration coughed up more than a trillion dollars to keep us safe from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction - all the while giving tax cuts to his wealthy friends. This is Voodoo Economics at its finest. That trillion dollars had to come from somewhere, and we didn't get a refund when we found out that the reason for the war was completely invalid.
- Bush fixes Social Security in 2005 by allowing citizens to use their Social Security money to invest in the stock market. This was too much even for Republicans, so it never happened. As a result, Social Security was rock solid on the day Bush left office - unlike most everything else.
- Reagan signs the Immigration Act of 1986, gives Amnesty to three million illegal aliens and solves the illegal immigration problem once and for all. How did this change our lives really? When I got a job as a college professor, I had to get out my birth certificate to prove that I am a real American. No doubt the people who cut the grass up and down my street on Long Island have to go through the same rigorous process.
- On to Iraq Early in 2002, John McCain declared that the Afghanistan war would be over in a few months and then we would go right over and invade Iraq. This proves the kind of fine military mind that can be fifth from the bottom of his class at Annapolis.
- Bush reads your email The logic went like this - "If we read everybody's email, we're bound to find the terrorist in all of that." Who could be against reading terrorists' emails? A few soreheads who still believed in this Constitution thing that Bush swore to uphold.
- Drill Baby Drill They were chanting this at the 2008 Republican Convention. Somebody better remind Senator Kyl, who intoned (with a straight face) shortly after the BP debacle "Republicans have never been about Drill Baby Drill."
Now these "Patriots" want to go back to this wonderful time that we left behind. A time of fiscal sanity. God help us if they succeed.