Republican Punk’d
The prosperity of the 1990s created a perfect climate for Americans and other industrialized nations around the world. People were so prosperous they flocked to see movies like Titanic and American Beauty where they could fantasize about being even more rich or more self-gratified than they really were.
The side-effect of eight years of peace and prosperity under Democratic rule led people around the world to feeling of guilt. Can things REALLY be this good? Can we REALLY have it all?
The digital revolution of the Dot-Com era had the GDP of nations around the world booming. The trickle-down economic theory espoused by Republicans in the 1980s started to actually seem like a reality. People were buying and selling houses like hotcakes. This spurred even more houses to be built at ever higher prices, thus driving the economy up even faster!
But there had to be a problem somewhere. It wasn’t really possible for a government controlled by Democrats to actually be good for business AND good for the people, was it?
Fortunately, for the Republican party, they found a problem. In the middle of a backwoods real estate deal over a podunk piece of land in Arkansas referred to as Whitewater. This trail of apparently shadowy dealings eventually led to a semen-stained dress. Exactly what the Republicans needed to crash the Democrat party and begin to unravel the economic good times that were delivered by Papa Clinton and his merry band of policy wonks.
It isn’t rocket science really. They want you to think it is. But Clinton and Co. did a few simple thing throughout the 1990s: Encourage business and consumer spending, curb government spending. Does this sound fanciful? There are certainly neocons out there who will claim this is revisionist history. If they tell you this, they are lying. The facts are on-line on the government’s own website. The percent changes of GDP from 1959 through 2006 are available for free to anyone with an internet connection. Download Spreadsheet B4 and check out Column B and Column N. Column B shows us that as our GDP increased slightly, our government spent less money – as displayed by Column N.
Why does this not make sense to the neocons? Bush and his Goon Squad of neocon thugs profess to be looking out for our country’s best interests, yet the only lessons they have learned from history involve attacking nations without the means to defend themselves from the military might of the United States.
“Remember 9/11!â€
“Remember the Maine!â€
How about, “Remember Papa Bill!â€
If America can remember the days of prosperity and wealth enjoyed by everyone in the last days of the 20th century and wonder where the hell it all went…then there is a chance on Novermber 7th, 2006 that the people of the United States will pull the plug on the neocons. It’s time to vote the Republican neocons out of office and save the sinking ship that will be forever stained with the “Bush Legacyâ€.
Friday, October 27 3:16 pm
I agree with everything you wrote here (sort of have to because what you’ve written is factual (as a liberal I love facts)). But there is one thing that Clinton did to help the Bush admin drive our economy into the dirt. That was his free trade insanity. Clinton’s domestic economic policy was truly genius, the work of a true economist. I think his heart was in the right place with his foreign policy but I don’t understand what he was thinking. There is no way to keep our people employed by allowing corporate america to exploit cheap labor everywhere else (I hate you Thomas Friedman–The world is round you obtuse asshole!). There is a way to make our foreign economic policy work for us and the world but it doesn’t involve us bleeding jobs from the ears.
PS I’m not blaming Clinton entirely for this but the framework he set up allowed the Neo-Cons to give the tax incentive for outsourcing which has been crippling for us and the countries we’re taking advantage of.
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