What has Big Gubmint ever done for US!?
In a week or two, just after Christmas, we'll be treated to annual reviews, the greats and the not so greats, those who left us and those who shaped us, in 2013. It almost seems like, once that ceremony is done, we barely speak of it again on cable news, as if it ceased to be, until enough living memory has passed away and the era is dutifully romanticized or satirized by screen writers to varying success.
Let's just remember what happened the last time a conservative administration and ledge got into the nation's wheelhouse. It started with the most controversial election in modern history, an electoral tie in Florida, ultimately broken not by voters but the Supreme Court in a weird decision in a state that happened to be governed by the winning candidate's brother. Then it got worse.
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The next major development was the worst attack on the US in history, killing almost 3,000 Americans. It's sobering to think in the next presidential election, the progressives will probably enjoy a great advantage among new voters who do not even remember 9-11 because they were too young.
If memory serves, this was followed by a botched invasion of the nation holding the head terrorist in which the bad guy escaped and continued to operate for years to come. That war still drags on to to this day although no one can really explain why, other than they don't want to look weak on terrorism.
While that was going on, the administration carefully cooked up a case for war against Iraq and engaged in a shady PR campaign to rattle an already panicky nation into charging into that conflict based on weapons and threats everyone now agrees were at best nonexistant, and some would argue were wholly fabricated. That war would cost over a trillion dollars, blow the deficit sky high, and kill and injure thousands and thousands of people including US service men and women.
Back at home, the Bush adminstration was also engaged in another campaign, to reward their wealthy benefactors with sweet tax cuts and favors. As the 9-11 attack and ill-conceived wars converted the Clinton budget surpluses to yawning deficits, the administration's rationale for why rich people should get big tax cuts changed, too. It started with "we have too much money and have to give some back," to "we don't have enough money so we need to stimulate the economy with tax cuts."
As the Iraq War went down the bloody rabbit hole most every expert agreed it would, the same WH was busy as bees appointing industry lobbyists to rewrite regulations and policy the way Wall Street and Exxon preferred. These efforts were massive, spanning the entire bureaucratic apparatus, from removing the protections put in place to prevent another Great Depression to muzzling government climate scientists, they were each orchestrated at the highest levels.
Right about then a hurricane that had been predicted and feared for decades and could be seen approaching at a slow jog from deep space took a bead on New Orleans. While George Bush himself and his entire entourage had been publicly handing out bottles of water in swing state Florida the year before, thanks to a looming presidential election, this time almost the entire administration decided to go on vacation. Cheney went fishing, Condi went shopping, and George holed up in his fake ranch, leaving a terrorism DHS head and an Arabian horse lawyer in charge as much of New Orleans was turned into new section of the growing Mississippi River delta.
By this time the American people had caught on and kicked the incompetent boobs out of Congress. Alas, we could not reverse legislation already passed with Bush holding the veto pen. The dismantling of the Glass-Steagull Act led inevitably to a total meltdown of the financial industry on a scale unseen since the Great Depression. The last significant act of the Bush WH was to ram through a zillion dollar bailout, adding trillions more in lost revenues and direct costs to our national debt, so that CEOs and department heads in the companies that caused the ruckus could keep paying out their lavish salaries and bonuses. When the topic of helping the regular citizen facing unemployment or foreclosure was raised, the same overpaid assholes who had created and been bailed out of the most toxic debt in history proceeded to lecture those of us who bailed them out with the evils of debt and the grandeur of involuntary austerity.
These are just the high points of how conservative ideology transformed a nation enjoying unparalleled peace and prosperity into a debt-racked country with a wrecked economy, a ravaged military, and income inequality and homelessness approaching third-world status, all in less than ten years. The idea that we need more of that is right up there with hoping Lindsey Lohan will finally learn how to celebrate responsibly. But there is one thing the GOP is still good at: winning elections. Don't forget that. Don't forget any of this either.