On Bush’s Watch

The across the board news today is anything but optimistic.  In Afghanistan American soldiers are dying in ones and twos at a time.  In Iraq there is the constant feeling of uncertainty where a road side device or a suicide bomber can take American lives almost at will.  In both of these conflicts there is no discernable plan or strategy on how to end these military engagements.  But that’s not all.

• Oil prices keep rising even in face of reduced US demand.
• Gasoline prices are taking a larger bite out of American budgets.
• Airline ticket prices are surging and threatening to make air travel unaffordable for a large section of American population.
• The national program to encourage the use of ethanol has backfired and is contributing to the run up in food prices, while the Government still pays many farmers not to plant corn and other crops.
• The housing bubble, which was so popular in the first decade of the 2000s, has burst and prices are falling as market forces try to correct the over valuation.  Individual homeowners are caught in the jaws of sinking prices when they need to sell, or if they find themselves unable to make their mortgage payments.
• The stock market has been falling and with it the value of millions of Americans retirement savings.  While there is every reason to believe that in time the market will rise again, if you need the money now you are out of luck.
• American manufacturing jobs are at an all time low with little or no Government incentives to replace the jobs that have gone to China or else where overseas with good paying new ones.
• The financial state of health of the US Government is a mess with the national debt having doubled since 2001 to $ 9 trillion and the value of the dollar sinking to 1/2 it value versus the euro over this same time period.
• More and more Americans are waking up to the threat and risk involved with global warming.  After nearly 8 years of denial and delays, the message is getting through to responsible leaders that this issue must take an important place in our national priorities.
• Healthcare and social security remain in danger of failing some time in the not so distant future because the Government can not bring itself to see its social responsibility.

Imagine all of this has taken place on George W Bush’s watch as President.  For sure there are other forces and factors involved, for example, green house gas emission from India and China can not be directly blamed on Bush.  Never the less, a wise leader assumes there will be factors outside their control and chooses their domestic and foreign policies prudently.  Looking back over the last 8 years, you will see the trail of a Presidency that saw everything as a “one off”.  There are clear signs of a total lack of an integrated and coordinated approach to the greatest responsibility any President has, “turning over the Country to the next President in better shape than he received it”.

John McCain and Barack Obama are standing at the doorstep of the Presidency and one of them will have the same opportunity to make decisions and provide leadership that could enable America to rise again and become a better place for our children.  There is no room for fear mongering, innovation stilling rhetoric about terrorism when other real world conditions pose much larger and more imminent problems.  For either McCain or Obama, it will be back to basics if they want to fix what is wrong.  They must drop the pandering to American’s self image of always winning and focus on honest hard work that will in fact produce results.  A better and stronger America will take hard work and much less spin.

What we will remember about “Bush’s Watch” is that he did not watch very much.

Explore posts in the same categories: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, George Bush, Iraq War, John McCain, Politics, Republican Party

Tags: currency value, economy, leadership, oil prices

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