This is crossed posted from Smart Girl Politics. I thought it was so good I asked for permission to post it here. I hope everyone agrees with me.
http://smartgirlpolitics.blogspot.com/
In a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Dave Bastl of Manor, PA wrote very simply what I have been trying to put to words for a few months:
George W. Bush has been in office for 71/2 years. For the first six years, the economy was fine. A little over one year ago:
Consumer confidence stood at a 21/2-year high
Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
The unemployment rate was 4.5 percent
The Dow Jones hit a record high of 14,000-plus
Americans were buying new cars, taking cruises and vacations
overseas-living large!
But Americans wanted "Change." So, in 2006 they voted in a
Democrat Congress. And, yep, we got change alright:
Consumer confidence has plummeted
Gasoline hit $4 a gallon
Unemployment is up to 6.1 percent
Americans have seen their home values drop by trillions of
dollars
1 percent of American homes are in foreclosure
The Dow Jones is probing another low--nearing 11,000--and $2.5
trillion has evaporated from our investment portfolios.
Yep, in 2006 America voted for change! And we got it--a
Democrat Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Now the Democrats' candidate for President claims he's gonna
really give us change! Just how much more "change" do you thing you
can stand?
The fact of the matter is that it has been the do-nothing Congress with their pitiful 9% approval rating that have landed us in this current position. I have my own beef with President Bush. The fact that he has approved almost every spending bill this Congress has sent him is aggravating. However, many of the issues occurring today cannot or could not have been changed by Bush alone. Bush does not write bills, Congress does.
What bills have they written? Nothing significant that would help every day citizens. Yes, the bi-partisan Congress passed a stimulus package, but it was too late to stop the downfall. Have they taken ANY steps to reduce our dependency on foreign oil?
Republicans were voted out in 2006 because of the war and corruption. Well, the war is going better, and now the Democrats have the majority on corruption....Senator Dodd, Senator Rengle, Congressman William Jefferson.
Finally, a thought for my friends here in the Ohio Valley and for that matter OH, PA, WV, and MI......who runs your local, county, and state governments? How many of your Congressman and Senators are Democrats? I know this area. These areas have continued to lose jobs and population for decades and in MOST cases, the Democrats have run their governments for DECADES.........To agree with Mr. Bastl above, it's time for change...just not the change Obama offers.
Merry Christmas
8 hours ago
While I agree that a democratic congress is not the best direction for our country, I'm estatic knowing that they haven't been able to acoomplish anything in the past year.
ReplyDeleteI tend to subscribe to the philosophy 'the less congress does, the better off we are'. While there are serious financial troubles occuring in the banking markets and in the housing sector, it would be unfair to peg all the fault on the democrats. Both parties unfortunately have subcribed to 'spend more than you make' way of doing things - and now we're in a big mess.
But it's so much more fun to blame the Democrats General.
ReplyDeleteOnly the most ignorant people on earth could possibly blame the Democrats for the price of oil or the housing crisis.
ReplyDeleteAnd the economy was most definitely not fine a year ago, or two years ago. Bush's economic record has been pitiful from day one. His job creation record has been pitiful. These aren't opinions, they're easily demonstrated facts.
Leave it to the GOP to argue with reality.
Big Blue...if you read the article..the writer gave specific economic data. If you hear for six years that the economy is bad...you probably start to believe it whether it is fact or not. Most economic indicators were must higher than during the Clinton years....until Congress went Democraat.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly Stacy, I've actually been reading the news for the last eight years. I'm well aware of what the economy has been doing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I did read the post, which is why I felt compelled to respond to it. I've gotta run now, but I'll get into more specifics about the insanity of this post when I get back.
But in short, of the stats she mentions, two were longterm problems that were going to catch up with us eventually and there was nothing really that could have been done to stop them: oil prices and the housing crisis. One was highly misleading: that the Dow Hit a record 14,000. The stock market generally goes up. Pretty well any president can talk about "hitting an all time high." The problem is, the stock market grew considerably more during the Clinton administration. It more than tripled in value during his two terms. At it's best point, it's only risen about 30% under Bush.
The consumer confidence number is meaningless, because she only compared it to a different point in the Bush administration.
And the unemployment numbers are okay, but not fantastic. Moreover, since we don't count people who have given up looking for work because they cannot find any, unemployment numbers tend to be overly optimistic.
So again, this piece is total garbage written by someone who either didn't understand what they were talking about, or just didn't care about being honest with the relevance of the facts they were presenting.
To further the discussion on the DOW-14,000, can you tell me what President Bush or Clinton did to get the DOW to climb that high?
ReplyDelete