It's about time a top Obama Administration official
set the record straight on the disaster that President Obama inherited from the Bush Administration (aka, "worst presidency ever"):
So, let's review a little history:
The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.
To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.
This fiscal irresponsibility -- and a laissez-faire attitude toward the excesses of the financial industry -- helped create the conditions for the deepest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.
Other than that, the Bush Administration did a "heckuva job," as they liked to say. Seriously, though, we'll now be cleaning up the Republicans' mess for years to come. Also unfortunately, millions of Americans are suffering because of Republican economics - supply side, trickle down, crony capitalism, whatever you want to call it. One thing's for sure: no matter how frustrated we get with the Democrats at times, we should never - repeat, never! - put the Republicans back in power. Not unless we want to go through this disaster again. Thanks to David Axelrod for reminding us.
