President Obama and other Democrats like to point out that we can’t afford to return to the failed policies of the Bush administration, trying to link Romney to Bush so that Obama can run against Bush again rather than run on his own record.
It made me stop and think, what if Bush never did leave office? What would America be like today under a third term of George W. Bush? Let’s take a step through the looking glass and imagine a parallel universe and how things might have played out. As the great Damien Sandow might say, "Allow me to beg your indulgence…"
"I am here to save you unwashed cretins from your impending fiscal downfall. You’re welcome, you’re welcome."
Despite the Constitution prohibiting a third term, everybody knows that Dubya never had any problems ignoring the Constitution. Of course, that’s no reason to believe he won’t stop in a third term. And despite misgivings from the public the 2008 elections so that like FDR before him, Bush is allowed the continuity of leadership to solve our financial crisis.In return for this show of the trust, President Bush promises to be a different president, maybe not so much as offering hope and change, but maybe just a kinder, gentler Dubya. We’ll refer to him as Bush 3.0.
Just like what he inherited in 2000 , Bush comes into office facing an economic downturn. Last time he tried the extremist notion of cutting taxes and putting people’s own money back in their pockets. Solid economic growth and low unemployment are not mistakes that our president was about to repeat, so now he decides to try something different by adopting the failed Keynesian policies of FDR in the 30s and Japan in the 90s. Yes, this is truly a new George W. Bush – a man so brilliant that he can take polices with a proven track record of failure and make them work!
Bush 3.0 gets off to a bit of a rocky start. Back in 2005 he drew criticism for spending $40 million on inauguration activities while America is involved in two wars. This time around despite still having two wars this inauguration cost a record $45M. But this is a new George 3.0, and his previous critics are ready to give their new president some slack.
The financial bailouts that he started as Dubya continue under Bush 3.0, and now everyone puts their hand out. He continues to show his contempt for the rule of law by bailing out GM and Chrysler, in the process shafting bondholders and others who made the grave mistake of not supporting his presidential campaign loudly enough.
We sadly saw more typical GOP cronyism – "stimulus" money being sent to states that needed it least, while doling out money to poorly run energy companies who happened to be led by big donors to his campaign. Yes, pushing money to the politically connected while inflating our currency by running the monetary printing presses show that "trickle down economics" are still alive and well.
One of the president’s early triumphs was the expansion of SCHIP- expanding children’
s health care in an effort to teach the middle class the joys of government dependency on the backs of the poor. Yes, the shameless president funded this measure through regressive taxes showing the GOP’s continued disdain for the poor.
Our president also used some unorthodox methods to "create" jobs. Seeing us drill for energy sources is naturally bad, so the president stimulated the energy sector by giving more power to regulators, while the oil employees out of work get food stamps – instant stimulus! In fact, the president showed his compassion by spending more than ever on the food stamp program. Compassionate Conservatism, anyone?
Many will argue over who increased the anti-business regulatory climate more, Dubya or Bush 3.0. This argument is sort of like comparing the wicked pepper steak they served in Joliet on Thursday nights, or the cabbage rolls at the Terra Haute federal pen, or the oatmeal at the Cook County slammer. You can argue who was worse, but when it’s all bad how much does it matter?
The new president’s blunders are not restricted to economy – early on he managed to insult special olympians over his bowling. This would lead to a challenge from a Special Olympics bowler, and even more embarrassing, a separate challenge from a Special Economist to a debate based Bush 3.0’s poor handling of the economy and grasp of basic economic theory.
Ever the fan of expanding government’s reach into our lives on the health care front, Bush 3.0 decided that Medicare part D wasn’t enough. In early 2010 he passed a law that would get dubbed "Bushcare". Of course, as the details came to light, this wound up just being a massive deal with Big Pharma and the hospital and doctor’s associations to turn our health care system into massive public utility. How did Bush 3.0 plan to pay for this – on the backs of the middle class like any typical Republican. And let’s not forget about the typical Bush corruption we saw in getting this passed – The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase. And despite the president’s promises that insurance premiums would go down the reality that this lackluster former businessman had to face is that premiums actually increased. Along with Bushcare we saw the extra-Constitutional rationing board in IPAB, just as Dubya always loved expanding bureaucracy with the likes of Homeland Security and No Child Left Behind.
Bush 3.0 also promised openness and transparency, and also vowed to get lobbyists out of Washington. Naturally as the president who used his MBA to turn lobbying into a major industry, he of course had no interest in doing so. Visitor logs are hidden,
and Bush 3.0 skirts the visitor logs by having his staff meet with lobbyists at a nearby coffee shop.
Bush 3.0 also had trouble in selecting a new cabinet, between his appointees being too extreme or having a distaste for paying taxes (can we question the Republicans’ patriotism now?). So he solved the problem not by finding more moderate or ethical candidates but by simply appointing them as Czars! Who needs congressional oversight and that pesky separation of power?
Although Bush 3.0 had tough words on his overuse on signing statements, that did not stop him from continuing the practice during his third term. While this was another broken promise, he did slow down its use, so let’s give George 3.0 some credit where it’s due.
Bush 3.0 also has some interesting views regarding firearms. First off, not having learned the lessons of Operation Wide Receiver, Fast & Furious picks up where OWR leaves off, only this time without even trying to track the weapons. Hey, everyone agrees that this man isn’t too smart.
Of course, weapons in federal hands are fine. Under Bush 3.0 our government sent armed agents to attack that dangerous threat to security known as… Gibson guitars.
And of course, this administration is buying heavy ordnance for… the Social Security Administration. Is anyone surprised seeing this from the president who gave us TSA fondling at airports and The Patriot Act? Bush 3.0 not only kept the Patriot Act in place, but expanded it, to include powers such as ordering the killing of U.S. citizens abroad who are deemed terrorists.
Even presidents need some R&R. Bush 3.0 made it back to the golf course, hitting the links 104 times in 3 1/2 years. During his first two terms Dubya gave up golf out of respect for our troops, but this is a new era.
Speaking of a new era, Bush 3.0’s foreign policy isn’t much better than his domestic policy. The same numbskull who thought he could see into Putin’s soul through his eyes kicked off the new era with what he thought was a "Reset Button" that roughly translated said "You overpaid." At least he was correct in that regard.
This new "Smart Diplomacy" seems to consist of disrespecting our friends, while showing weakness toward the bad guys.Yes, the same president who was once seen in a wince-worthy photo op holding hands with a Saudi leader is now just bowing to other leaders. For all we heard about how it would take generations to repair the foreign policy damage of Dubya, this pales next to the shows of weakness and betrayals of trust shown in his third term.
Although George 3.0 did make good on promises that were made during his 2nd term to draw troops down in Iraq and Afghanistan, that didn’t stop George 3.0 from entering a third war of choice, this time with Libya. This time George 3.0 couldn’t be bothered with going to Congress for permission, and instead went to who he truly sees himself accountable – the U.N.
After having helped the rebels overthrow Gaddaffi, we would later learn that some of these weapons being used by our "allies" are ending up in Al-Queda hands. This is right in line with the "blue on green" attacks on our military in Afghanistan.
And although he diligently attended daily security briefings during his first two terms by his third term George 3.0 was barely going, right up to the point where this new regime in Libya allowed an assault on our embassy where our Ambassador was murdered and raped. To make matters worse, the White House misfires and explains that this was due to a badly produced anti-Islamic movie. Sadly, George 3.0 shows more indignation over the film being made than the murders themselves, reminiscent of his "Islam is Peace" statement after the first 9/11 attacks.
George 3.0’s reaction in the aftermath didn’t help, either. Like any good friend of the wealthy, he immediately trotted off to Las Vegas to a fundraiser featuring a $280,000 champagne tower, even though unemployment has been above 8 percent for 43 months and he hasn’t met with his jobs council since January. After that George 3.0 got stumped by David Letterman with that hardball question of how big the debt was, perhaps because he ignored his own debt commission? Anyone surprised by these two actions has probably forgotten how as Dubya he ignored the advice of the Iraq Study Group
Speaking of the war on terror, George 3.0’s promise to close Guantanamo has been broken, but he found a solution to satisfy everyone. Now he just has terrorists killed with drone strikes. For that matter, number of US troops killed overseas has risen steadily since his third term started, along with enemies via drone attacks.
Back to the home front, how has the George 3.0 economy fared? He actually took on some friendly fire in the 2010 midterms, with the emergence of a movement called the Tea Party. This fringe element of the GOP emerged with the radical, extremist agenda of… spending less money than you take in. Ever oblivious to reality, George 3.0 actually started blaming his own party members for stalling the economy by refusing to pass his "jobs" bills, but anyone who’s paid attention for the last three years has woken up to the reality that repeating a failed policy to hand out political favors isn’t going to revive our economy. And the results have spoken for themselves:
US Median Income Lowest since 1995
Rich-Poor Gap Widens to Most Since 1967 as Income Falls
Food-stamp use reached a record 46.7 million people in June 2012
More Americans went on disability than found jobs in last 3 months 1
Black and Latino unemployment tells you who is getting his hardest by Bush 3.0’s economic policies.
Young people are dropping out of the job market
Record numbers of Americans are leaving the workforce
High gas prices are hurting working class families
And to cap it off, Bush doubled down on how he managed our federal budget as Dubya. Bush 3.0 increased the federal debt to $16 Trillion.
Wow! That was a pretty crazy exercise, wasn’t it? As outlandish as some of my ideas were, I don’t think they seemed all that inconsistent with how a third term of a George W. Bush presidency might have looked based on his first two terms in office. And of course, I can only speculate as to how badly our economy might have performed under his third term in office. But I can say this for sure, if the scenario I just outlined were to actually happen there would be no doubt that Bush 3.0 would not deserve another term in office.
So, what do you think? Was I too hard on Dubya? Maybe not all of the events I listed would have happened, but did any of them see completely out of line with his character to you? Or did I miss any events from the last three years that should have been included? Drop your ideas in the comments section!
Before I end this post I want to take one last quick look down the rabbit hole into my Bizarro-world parallel universe. As crazy as this may sound, in that world the same mainstream media that tore into Dubya for eight years now have become the de facto palace guards, defending Bush 3.0’s every action at every turn. And the same American citizens who spent eight years criticizing Dubya’s every move now will defend every word and action of Bush 3.0, now matter who stupid, damaging, or just plain wrong. For that matter, some of Dubya’s most outspoken critics have taken to showing that their support for Bush 3.0 is to be taken seriously by… dressing up like giant vaginas.
Yeah, I know that last paragraph is too crazy to believe – that could never actually happen… right?
Cross Posted from Brother Bob’s Blog
1 Those first five links in that sequence came from a piece written by Michael Laprarie over at Wizbang. The rest of the links are ones that I decided to add and researched, but I wanted to credit Michael for giving me the idea to include it and for his effort.
Thanks for using my Damien Sandow pic in the header – awesome, Curt!
This is shear non-sense.
The TARP program was difficult to structure and to administer. Nonetheless it was within the legal and constitutional responsibilities of the Federal departments and agencies involved as understood at least since the New Deal. Many conservatives just don’t like it. Too bad. They shouldn’t blame Pres. Bush. They need to take it up with FDR. And do you now what? They’re around seven decades too late for a struggle that was lost during the Great Depression. The New Deal gave us the FDIC to preserve the integrity of the American banking system and the FDIC has been operating for the better part of a century and I don’t recall a single sane conservative mounting any sort of criticism of the FDIC.
There are however certain banking failures and dangers to the banking system that are just too big for the FDIC to handle. That is where the Fed and the US Treasury are supposed to step in and preform the role of the FDIC on a larger scale. That IS just what happened in 2008. And similar to the way it worked during the Banking Crisis of the late 1980s. Ever hear of Resolution Trust Corp.? TARP was both legal and constitutional. TARP was designed to function similar to the way the Resolution Trust Corp. functioned. And like the Resolution Trust Corp., the TARP expenditures under Pres. Bush ended up returning a profit to US Treasury when they were paid back as planned and as expected.
And Pres. Bush’s contempt for the rule of law by bailing out GM and Chrysler? Good lord! The country had just voted to move in a leftward direction. Letting GM and Chrysler collapse weeks before the new administration was sworn in would have been a reckless passive aggressive act and a breach of the President’s oath of office. And it would have been a colossal failure. Pres. Bush had the legal and constitutional authority to extend short-term financing to GM and Chrysler whether conservatives like it or not. And he did so in such a way as to REQUIRE just the sort of necessary structural and cost cutting reforms that would have been accomplished in a competent pre-planned bankruptcy. GM and Chrysler should have gone through pre-planned bankruptcies. If people don’t like the way Pres. Obama abrogated Pres. Bush’s reform provisions and thereafter how Pres. Obama bailed out the UAW at the expense of non-Democratic constituencies they should not have voted for Obama or the they should have turned out in greater numbers to vote for McCain. Anyone informed person with foresight saw it coming the day the election results were counted.
Pres. Bush acted in “contempt for the rule of law”? Nonsense.
@Mike: I think you missed the point of this post. Although I see what you specifically cited could have been worded better by me, the point of this post was to show how the left completely ignores incompetence that would have had them howling bloody murder under Bush.
My referring to Bush acting in contempt of the rule of law is just addressing how the lefties characterized *everything* that happened under Bush
Sorry for the misunderstanding!
@Brother Bob:
Thanks.
Maybe you can can clear that up by editing the original.
Pres. Bush did not bail out Wall Street. Nor did he he bail out cronies, friends and family the way that Maxine Waters (D) and other Democrats appear to have done. MSM misrepresent the crisis to the American public from Bear Sterns onward.
What Pres. Bush did is what no other President who has faced such a crisis has been able to achieve. Pres. Bush, with great political courage, integrity and competence prevented a worldwide Great Depression. Hoover failed. FDR failed. Bush succeeded. Because of Pres. Bush the US economy was headed into a robust recovery beginning in the second quarter of 2009. Because untold numbers of conservatives panicked and abandoned the Republican tickets in 2008 we elected a SCOAMF who went on to scuttle that recovery and seems determined to steer the US economy into a depression.
@Mike: I’ll never edit the original. Unlike the MSM I take accountability for my mistakes and answer for them!
However distasteful, I agree completely with the bank bailouts. Cheney did a great job of explaining the rationale behind them. We should have made it clear they wouldn’t get it again – accountability is great to create responsibility.
Thanks Bro. Bob.
Much of the fault is lies with the MSM. I knew we were in trouble from the get-go. MSM took its cue from DNC talking points and mischaracterized the Feds’ and Treasuries’ intervention during the Bear Stearn liquidity crisis as a bailout of WallStreet.
The Fed and Treasury in effect forced the sale of illiquid Bear Stearns over the weekend on March 15 and 16, 2008. The intended price for Bear Stearn’s common shares in the merger agreement with JP Morgan Chase in a stock swap was in effect $2 a share or less than 7 percent of Bear Stearns’ market value just two days before on Friday March 14, 2008 the last day of trading before the Bush Administration intervention. This sale price represented a staggering loss as its stock had traded at $172 a share as late as January 2007, and $93 a share as late as February 2008. Ordinarily common equity receives 8% to 10% in bankruptcy. The Fed and Treasury did not ‘bailout” the owners of Bear Stearns. It burned them. It gave them a forced haircut that none on Wall Street would ever forget. Yet MSM dutifully reported the the Bush Administrative bailed out Bear Stearns when in reality the Fed and Treasury confiscated the ownership of Bear Stearns and gave the former common shareholders less than the price of a Mickey D’s ‘Happy Meal’ per share in exchange! One can almost imagine the Secretary of the Treasury coldly tossing the CEO of Bear Stears a Happy Meal bag for dinner after the paperwork for the deal was signed. Brutal! Absolutely brutal! Yet MSM characterized this as a “bailout”!