Bush’s Disastrous First 100 Days (Tim Kaine)

[struggle4progress]

On Saturday, April 30, we “celebrate” President Bush’s first 100 days in office. To put it mildly, this has not been the heroic “First 100 Days” of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when FDR made huges strides towards saving the nation from starvation, violence, and even revolution. Instead, after Bush’s first 100 days, we’re heading in the completely opposite direction, as the country sinks lower economically, and as right-wing Republicans escalate their jihad against the judiciary — not to mention the US Constitution’s entire system of careful checks and balances.

As if all this hasn’t been bad enough, we’ve also had rampant corruption (think Tom DeLay), a coarsening of our political climate (vicious attacks on judges and Democrats as “anti-Christian”), and a near-complete failure to tackle the country’s serious problems. Instead, President Bush and the Republican Congress have offered sham solutions to real problems, while instead wasting their time and energy meddling in private family matters like the Terry Schiavo case. Apparently, President Bush and the Republican Congress are more concerned with telling us how and when we can die than with ensuring peace and prosperity while we live. <snip>

Fully aware of his declining popularity, Karl Rove…er, President Bush, last night called an emergency press conference and pressured the TV networks into showing it in prime time. Unfortunately for him, the big “news” Bush came to convey was almost guaranteed to send his popularity plummeting even lower: major cuts to Social Security benefits “for all but low-income retirees.” In other words, what Bush’s brilliant plan to “reform” and “save” Social Security really comes down to is a plan to slash benefits for the middle class and to gut this wildly popular — and effective — program. <snip>

The sad thing is, it didn’t have to be this way. During the 1990s, the Clinton Administration’s economic policies led to a booming stock market, low inflation, a federal budget surplus, and generally excellent economic times. In stark contrast, the first 4 years and 100 days of Bush and the Republicans have been miserable in almost every way. We would suggest that this is no fluke. Instead, we would strongly suggest that they are the DIRECT RESULT of Republican “spend and spend…and spend some more” policies, an incredibly expensive — and never ending — war in Iraq (what ever happened to “Mission Accomplished?”), plus massive tax giveaways to rich oil companies and gazillionaires. <snip>

http://www.raisingkaine.com/blog/?p=185

[senseandsensibility]

1. Good article

kick!

[Robin Hood]

2. Wow, This is brilliant.

<Instead, President Bush and the Republican Congress have offered sham solutions to real problems, while instead wasting their time and energy meddling in private family matters like the Terry Schiavo case. Apparently, President Bush and the Republican Congress are more concerned with telling us how and when we can die than with ensuring peace and prosperity while we live. <snip>

[Cha]

3. But, this is what they have strived for...

No? Plunging our Country into an economic nightmare? For the life of me..I can't understand how they can gain when the USA is a failure..but many on this board have said that is the goal of the neofascists.

Maybe they want to destroy all the social programs and then turn it into a dictatorship..Ha! Like that would fly!

[struggle4progress]

4. They are corporatists. Modern corporations are more powerful ...

... than most historical nation-states have been, and only the more powerful modern states have been able to challenge corporate power.

Modern capital is international in scope, and the aim of knocking down international barriers to corporate transfers of wealth and power has been to further limit the ability of the modern state to challenge the modern corporation: making resource transfer easier, increases the mobility of corporations, so that faced with a local challenge to their power they can more easily relocate.

The deliberate smashing of US regulatory power, by bankrupting the American state, is intended to eliminate the sole superpower which otherwise would be most able to confront corporate power.

[Cha]

9. The bigger the are the harder

they fall..this is what keeps me going!

[struggle4progress]

11. "Well they tell me there’s a pie in the sky waiting for me when I die

But between the day you're born and when you die
Oh Lord, they never seem to hear even your cry

And as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all
Oh the harder they come the harder they fall

Well the oppressors are trying to get me down,
trying to drive me under the ground
And they think that they have got their battle won
I say: "Forgive 'em Lord. They know not what they’ve done"

And as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all
Oh the harder they come the harder they fall

And I keep on fighting for the things I want, though I know
That when you’re dead, man you're gone
But I’d rather be a free man in my grave
Oh, than living like a puppet or a slave

And as sure as the sun will shine
I’m gonna get my share of what’s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they fall, one and all
Oh the harder they come the harder they fall"

-- Jimmy Cliff

[Cha]

12. Thanks, I needed some Jimmy

Cliff..right about now!

[libodem]

5. someone else coined this

'borrow and spend' republicans. I think it fits. As opposed to the 'tax and spend' framing they have done to the Democrats.

[AzDar]

6. kick.

[radar]

7. "FIRST 100 days?!?!"

I don't know - I'm getting the impression that the last four years are nobody's fault...??? Comparing this 2005 period to FDR's 1933 1st run.

What happened to the first term had to work with? Guess it's like golf - a mulligan or do-over; 1st shot doesn't count.

[struggle4progress]

8. It really DID happen, didn't it? I was hoping it was a bad dream ... eom

[hannah]

10. Republicans

Perhaps we should refer to them as cons! Republicons, Neocons. I don't know, :blush:

[spooky3]

13. Please, let him be our next governor--to succeed the very competent

Mark Warner (VA law limits gov's to one term only).

[patricia92243]

14. Any polls on Bush popularity since press conferance? n/t