{"id":2349,"date":"2010-07-23T04:48:04","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T11:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2349"},"modified":"2010-07-23T04:48:04","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T11:48:04","slug":"krugman-addicted-to-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/07\/23\/krugman-addicted-to-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Krugman: Addicted to Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman wrote an excellent editorial about hoe Republicans are trying to resurrect the failed Presidency of GW Bush.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"23reich\" For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we\u2019re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back<\/strong>. And many in the news media played along, acting as if it was somehow uncouth for Democrats even to mention the Bush era and its legacy. <\/p>\n

The truth, however, is that the only problem Republicans ever had with George W. Bush was his low approval rating<\/strong>. They always loved his policies and his governing style \u2014 and they want them back<\/font><\/strong>. In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation<\/strong>. They\u2019ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

But they have a problem: how can they embrace President Bush\u2019s policies, given his record? After all, Mr. Bush\u2019s two signature initiatives were tax cuts and the invasion of Iraq; both, in the eyes of the public, were abject failures<\/strong>. Tax cuts never yielded the promised prosperity, but along with other policies \u2014 especially the unfunded war in Iraq \u2014 they converted a budget surplus into a persistent deficit<\/strong>. Meanwhile, the W.M.D. we invaded Iraq to eliminate turned out not to exist, and by 2008 a majority of the public believed not just that the invasion was a mistake but that the Bush administration deliberately misled the nation into war<\/strong>. What\u2019s a Republican to do? <\/p>\n

You know the answer. There\u2019s now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush\u2019s image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war. <\/p>\n

On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that \u201cthere\u2019s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy<\/strong>.\u201d So now the word is that the Bush-era economy was characterized by \u201cvibrancy.\u201d… <\/p>\n

…On the deficit: Republicans are now claiming that the Bush administration was actually a paragon of fiscal responsibility, and that the deficit is Mr. Obama\u2019s fault<\/strong>. \u201cThe last year of the Bush administration,\u201d said Mr. McConnell recently, \u201cthe deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range of what most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it\u2019s almost 10 percent.\u201d <\/p>\n

But that 3.2 percent figure, it turns out, is for fiscal 2008 \u2014 which wasn\u2019t the last year of the Bush administration, because it ended in September of 2008. In other words, it ended just as the failure of Lehman Brothers \u2014 on Mr. Bush\u2019s watch \u2014 was triggering a broad financial and economic collapse<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

…Finally, on the war: For most Americans, the whole debate about the war is old if painful news \u2014 but not for those obsessed with refurbishing the Bush image. Karl Rove now claims that his biggest mistake was letting Democrats get away with the \u201cshameful\u201d claim that the Bush administration hyped the case for invading Iraq. Let the whitewashing begin<\/strong>! <\/p>\n

Again, Republicans aren\u2019t trying to rescue George W. Bush\u2019s reputation for sentimental reasons; they\u2019re trying to clear the way for a return to Bush policies<\/font><\/strong>. And this carries a message for anyone hoping that the next time Republicans are in power, they\u2019ll behave differently. If you believe that they\u2019ve learned something \u2014 say, about fiscal prudence or the importance of effective regulation \u2014 you\u2019re kidding yourself. You might as well face it: they\u2019re addicted to Bush.  [emphasis added<\/em>] <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Many days, I feel almost as angry at Democrats as I do at Republicans.  I\u2019ve seen bigger balls on a mouse.  But I temper that anger, because of something Benjamin Franklin said in 1787.  Asked what form of government our new nation will have, as the Constitutional Convention closed, he replied, \u201cA republic, if you can keep it.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Today, our government is more representative of a corporate plutocracy than a republic.  The last vestiges of our Republic stand threatened.  We weathered the Fourth Reich only because it lasted just eight years.  If Republicans are allowed to establish a Fifth Reich, our republic will not survive.<\/font><\/p>\n

We desperately need to drain the Democratic Party swamp, but right now, our spineless Democrats are the only thing standing between us and a complete loss of representative government.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/p>\n

Every Republican in office is one Republican too many!<\/font><\/strong><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Krugman wrote an excellent editorial about hoe Republicans are trying to resurrect the failed Presidency of GW Bush. For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}