Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?
I’ll never forget that campaign slogan: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” As a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan first employed that phrase against Jimmy Carter during the 1980 debates to devastating effect, as US News & World Report notes, albeit somewhat grudgingly:
Coming just one week before the election, the encounter gave Carter little time to recover from a stumble. That night, Carter displayed a mastery of detail, Reagan a mastery of stagecraft. He dismissed Carter’s critique of his views on Medicare with a mocking “There you go again.” In his final statement, Reagan delivered a knockout punch: “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment … than there was four years ago?” Reagan’s rhetorical questions, carefully rehearsed but delivered with his characteristic power, pierced Carter’s presidency and helped cement Reagan’s legacy as the Great Communicator. “Certainly no one remembers what the hell Carter said that night,” says Rick Shenkman, a presidential historian at George Mason University. “It was Reagan’s debate.” A week later, it was Reagan’s election.
Having talked the talk, by 1984, President Reagan could walk the walk, as they say. In that short time, America had returned from groveling-in-the-dirt, Democrat-induced “malaise” to the land of prosperity and the promise of more to come.
That simple question reached right into my heart of hearts and transformed me from a poppycock-believing, hippie liberal to patriotic conservative in one fell swoop.
Reagan’s oh-so-easy-to-answer question had that effect on such a vast swath of Americans that he won reelection in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history. His Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, took only the District of Columbia and his home state of Minnesota, which gave Reagan 525 electoral votes, the highest any candidate has ever received — before or since.
So if I were a Republican candidate right now, I would start putting that same slogan on every billboard and on every post in every town square in America. I would print millions of those “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” posters for folks to put in their front yards. I would make a gazillion bumper stickers and T-shirts and coffee mugs and I would open every single speech on the campaign trail with that question.
Because as we sadly know well, the only people in America who will answer that they are better off now than they were four years ago are the fat-cat, tax-cheating, lying Democrat corruptocrats, who took over control of the U.S. Congress the same four years ago. They’ll be joined by their small, favored circle of oligarchs from big business and the hedge fund operators. Running alongside them with open-hands frenzy will be the tiny cadre of thieving thugs running the labor unions, the ones living in the lap of luxury while their members bleed jobs and depend on pensions that wreck the economies of the very cities where they live. But every single Main Street voter — the vast majority of Americans — will answer with a deafening: “No! We’re not better off!”
Democrats, under the directorship of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, took majority control of Congress in 2006.
They spent the first year declaring the Iraq war a lost cause, even though the vast majority of those Democrats in office in 2003 had willingly voted to send our men and women to war there. The Democrats spent millions and millions of dollars holding witch-hunt hearings against our generals and accusing our valiant military of callous murder. Then Senators Obama and Clinton accused General Petraeus of lying under oath, especially when he said there was a strong al-Qaeda operation in Iraq. Democrat Pete Stark stood on the once-august floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and claimed that Republicans had sent America’s bravest to fight in Iraq and “get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” Harry Reid stood on the front steps of the Capitol — while hundreds of thousands of our finest youth were in harm’s way — and declared, “This war is lost,” in a clear and unprovoked comfort to our own enemy. Well, our bravest did win in Iraq and now the Democrats are in full-swing retreat as Iran prepares to turn that hard-won victory into its own military satellite. Iraq is quickly becoming like the South Vietnam Democrats deserted nearly 40 years ago.
Americans don’t like to go to war; that’s a fact. But if we do, then we want to win and we don’t want lily-livered politicians using our flesh-and-blood soldiers for political cannon fodder.
On the home front, Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming. The Democrats had a field day fighting off Republican attempts to reform Fannie-Freddie before it brought the mortgage business to full-blown crisis. Then, when the whole thing exploded in all our faces — bringing the cascading collapse to banks and every other industry in America — the Democrats turned right around in the blink of an eye and wagged their dirty little fingers at Republicans as though none of the citizenry would be the wiser. The Democrats weren’t worried. They presumed that once they got control of the Congress, they could bury their own malfeasance and incompetence under the rug of majority rule. And that is precisely what they have done. No investigations. No hearings. Democrat rulers think the public is still in the dark ages — before the internet.
What a bunch of puffed-up ninnies these Democrat rulers are.
They have used their majority status to ram through mountains of anti-business, regulatory legalese that literally shackles the recovery they disingenuously proclaim. Even as Democrats have run around the country all summer like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, yelling “Recovery!” at the top of their little lungs, the recovery isn’t happening on Main Street and they are the very reason why it isn’t. They won election with their crass gospel of envy, bashing the job creators at every turn and then shake their heads with wonder at why these same small businesses have the life too scared out of them to hire people.
These Democrats openly admit they haven’t even read the bills they’ve passed and then ponder why the citizenry is upset with them. They act as though the U.S. Constitution is nothing more than a doormat that they can step upon as they enter the halls of taxpayer-funded, personal enrichment. They’ve turned the words “public servant” into a synonym for lying thief.
Ever since wresting control of Congress, the Democrat rulers have done all in their power to finagle their way to bureaucratic tyranny, all the while blaming the out-of-power Republicans for having the temerity to say “No,” as strongly as their puny numbers will allow them.
With an unemployment rate still hovering just below double digits, Democrats have the unprecedented arrogance to go around the country blaming everyone but themselves. As an old Mom, I recognize this con job with piercing acuity. It’s the kid caught with his hand in your cookie jar, willing to look you square in the face and tell you his brother did it.
And believe me, it does not take a degree from Harvard for any Mom in this position to know she is being had by an incorrigible, too-big-for-his-breeches brat. Which is precisely what these Democrats have become. Incorrigible brats.
So, Republicans, take a lesson from a seasoned mom and her hero, Ronald Reagan. Just plaster the country with the question:
Are you better off than you were four years ago — when the Democrats took control of Congress?
Say, on a billboard, perhaps:
And on Election Day, all of us common-sense moms and dads, Main Street dwellers from coast to coast and everywhere in between, will hand you a landslide the likes of which haven’t been seen since 1984.
Are you better of than you were two years ago? Vote R on November 2.
Democrats, where are the jobs? Why is the Dow “stuck” at ~10,500? Congess, where is your budget for the current year?
I would have one simple ad this November for the Republicans. I would simply have a picture showing Pelosi, Reid, and Obama laughing together with a caption saying: Haven’t you had enough?
November. It’s coming an no amount of insults from the Democrats is going to stop it. The Tea Party movement is sweeping the nation and the only thing Democrats can do is start looking for a new day job.
Show up, vote, get other to vote like you, and throw those elitist, condescending, bums out of office. Haven’t you had enough yet?
Maybe “we” have had enough…but the polls show that most Americans have not..
When a political party crucifies a candidate like the republicans have Christine O’Donnell, they should be put out of business. Carl Rove was an @$$hole in his comments. The party should have banded together..but not in this country. This one of the reasons we have such poor candidates in general.
Today the dems,and their president, blamed the republicans because the don’t ask don’t tell didn’t go through..they don’t bother to tell the public there were several dems that didn’t vote for it either, and they don’t bother to tell that the republicans didn’t vote for it because of the crap the dems had added onto the bill to do with funding the war.
I am so sick of politicians and media that only tell “part” of the truth!! they need to be hung out to dry. However, I will believe it when I see it.
We are NOT!!! better off financially. If we had better politicians we would have better finances.
Apparently, you can get the answer “no” if you ask Obama’s own family members like his Aunt Zeituni:
http://wbztv.com/local/obama.aunt.zeituni.2.1921954.html#addComments
Aunt Zeituni seems very upset about the way America has treated her in the past four years and wants us to know about it!
This lady (Obama’s aunt)would make a great political ad for what is wrong with our system.
She got a top level emigration attorney, with “no” money?
She obtained government Housing as an illegal “over” legal residents?
She can’t go back to Kenya because she might be in danger? The rest of OBama’s family lives there, where is the danger?
Her attitude stinks.
Also, My answer to the initial question is s resounding “NO NO NO”
I certainly hope there is a republican presidential candidate next time with a competence and strength nearing that competence and strength which have clearly displayed in this article.
No one is better off today than 4 years ago, ALL elected officials have failed us on both sides of the aisle.
And that’s the point of the Tea Partiers, sonny!
>>The Democrats had a field day fighting off Republican attempts to reform Fannie-Freddie before it brought the mortgage business to full-blown crisis.<<
- Kyle-Anne Shiver passes this convenient meme along, as if it were actually a fact. But how and why did our financial markets crash? Was it because poor little bankers had to make loans to poor? Ask yourself this…..what was the value of ALL Fannie-Freddie loans that defaulted? What was the amount of defaulted loans in TOTAL that swamped the "derivatives" market? You'll find MOST defaults were RE-FINANCES that were in no way connected to Fannie-Freddie. How did ths happen you may ask….
The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This bill repealed the Glass-Stegall Act which maintained a firewall between banks and investment banks, as well as insurance companies. How is this important in the context of home foreclosures? Because GLB allowed banks to initiate loans (mostly re-finances) and then bundle them up (large numbers of the loans they originated) and sell them as securities. These securities were traded on the open market, and the purchasers of these securities had no idea the originating banks made loans to anyone regardless of income. These banks didn't care because they weren't going to be the institution responsible when the mortgage holders defaulted…..they already made their money from originating the loan and then by selling the loan. Eventually this house of cards fell, destroying our economy but no one seems to understand why. They blame Pelosi or Barney Frank, Obama or whoever, but they have no clue. All their information comes from Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh. They are convinced they know.
By the way, who does Phil Gramm work for now? -A very large Swiss Bank. Nice work if you can get it!
The real cause of the morgage meltdown is the Community Redevelopment Act passed by Carter, subsequently modified and strengthened by Clinton. This bill is what forced banks to lend to people who couldn’t previously qualify for a loan, all in the name of social engineering instead of maintaining a robust economy. And your claim that those who purchased the securities were unaware of the law they were following just doesn’t fly.
And just so you know, GWB tried at least five times to fix the crisis he saw coming, but Dodd and Frank were the roadblocks every time.
The house of cards you refer to fell due to government meddling in the housing market. It was designed to fail. And the engineers of this failure, in order to deflect blame away from them (where it rightly belongs) cry that “The system doesn’t work” and “Capitalism is a failure.”
The truth is that government caused the collapse.
Well said BackwardsBoy. Despite the incoherent ramblings of David W. Walters which, apparently, are meant to suggest that all we need is more governemnt involvemewnt in the already, essentially socialized mortgage lending market, what we really need is a free market. You know, you buy what you can afford. I buy what I can afford. The banks lend their own money (not printed Monolpoly money from the Fed, which is just our money that the government confiscates by various means and hands over to the banks who then lend our money back to us as if it were theirs). And if either one of us defaults on our loan we lose our house and the lender takes its lumps, if any, without a bail out for anyone. You know, freedom.
TL,
The best retort to the facts (-when you have no facts on your side), is an ad hominem attack. No, what I was suggesting was that we need to understand what really happened, so it won’t happen again. The Banking Act of 1933(the Glass-Steagall Act) worked out quite well until Phil Gramm’s law repealled it. How long did Phil’s bill take to screw over America? Any questions?
BackwardsBoy,
-got it wrong. Add up the value of the defaulted loans from the Community Reinvestment Act…..it does not come close to being a majority of the TOTAL amount of the home loans that defaulted. Most by far were Re-Finances, NOT connected with CRA. The re-financed because banks made Soooo much $money$
1) Originating the re-finance, and
2) Taking a wad of their quickly written loans and RESELLING these bundles loans as “securities”.
This is what the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did for us!
My wife and I consider ourselves lucky that we still both have our jobs. The difference 4 years ago – we both had multiple job / career opportunities inside and outside our present company. Not now.
Now it is do a good job, hold on and weather the economic storm.
How does one say ‘hell no’ with conviction and eloquence? And how can you convince the worshipers, of this god of incompetence, that it is NOT going to improve under his reign?
please you right wring nut jobs stop giving that corps a blow job please or does the flavor of formalahide raste good to you. it 201o he’s been dead for 5 year or mowe
Sure. The moment you learn the rules of written English, and gain some actual spelling skills.
Arnold’s the poster boy for his fellow travellers views on eugenics.
He’d never survive the consequences of getting what he’s really asking for.
Wow. That is what’s known as a self-flaming post. There is virtually nothing that can be posted in response to arnold’s drivel that will outdo his own amazing display of stupidity behind a keyboard.
But I will offer a bit of advice for poor little arnold: do not to post to political websites after chugging your bong-water. It’s embarrassing for everyone.
I think Arnie has what my IT-type brother in law refers to as a PEBCAK:
Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.
Animal, Ward Dorrity, AF_Vet: my hat’s off to you… ANYONE who can respond intelligently to the ramblings of: Arnold schwertman: “please you right wring nut jobs stop giving that corps a blow job please or does the flavor of formalahide raste good to you. it 201o he’s been dead for 5 year or mowe”
~~anyone who can counter that gibberish is an expert!
Your responses: “Sure. The moment you learn the rules of written English, and gain some actual spelling skills.”
“Arnold’s the poster boy for his fellow travellers views on eugenics.”
“He’d never survive the consequences of getting what he’s really asking for.”
and, “I think Arnie has what my IT-type brother in law refers to as a PEBCAK: Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard” — clever!
May I also apologise for a typo in my response to JimmyJoe, proclaimed LiarFryer. In my first sentence, I said ‘earliest’ to read I meant to say ‘easiest’ to read — Proving once again, you cannot proof your own work! h
“On the home front, Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming.”
Really? No. That Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae business was not the main cause, and it occurred while the Republicans controlled the Senate. And if you insist on blaming Barney Frank and the Democrats, you’re going to have to blame one more person at least.
And are we better off than we were 4 years ago? Stupid question — we are tons better: for one, we no longer have a lying incompetent and his gang of ne’er-do-wells trashing economies and destructively & mindlessly stomping about overseas, while being protected by the Republican slime balls controlling both the House and the Senate.
I don’t think the voters agree, and we’ll know for sure in November.
Let’s see unemployment hold at almost 10%, national debt increased 35%, NO budget, failed policies that wasted billions, more racism charges, dropped voter intimidation case that was already won, governement takeovers of auto, financial, healthcare, bowing to other countries leaders, oh, and we have a lying incompetent president and his gang of ne’er-do-well, with whom 95% of them have no private life experience running anything, so I would say, no we are not better, we are much much worse!
Hey BobNY you must have won many prizes at the fair in that Whack a
MoleTroll game what a shot that was to stupido!Our marxist meat puppet BC isn’t content merely to drink the Kool-Aid – he snorts the powder through a straw just like any lefty high on collectivist crack.
too true~~~~
“…destructively & mindlessly stomping about overseas…”
LOL. That’s rich coming from a liberal Dembot, the guys who brought you two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and 600,000 American war dead.
“On the home front, Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming.”
Really? Yes. That Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae business was very much the main cause, and it occurred while Democrats blocked and filibustered every attempt to do something about it in the Senate. If you insist on blaming George Bush and the Republicans, you’re a hypocrite.
And are we better off than we were 4 years ago? Hell no! For one, we now have a lying incompetent and his gang of parasitic ne’er-do-wells trashing economies and destructively & mindlessly stomping around overseas, while being protected by the Democrat slime balls controlling the House, Senate, and Lamestream Media.
“On the home front, Democrats fought every Republican effort to clean up the impending Fannie-Freddie catastrophe with their standard class-warfare rhetoric and racist sliming.”
Really? Yes. That Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae business was very much the main cause, and it occurred while Democrats blocked and filibustered every attempt to do something about it in the Senate. If you insist on blaming George Bush and the Republicans, you’re a hypocrite.
And are we better off than we were 4 years ago? Hell no! For one, we now have a lying incompetent and his gang of parasitic ne’er-do-wells trashing economies and destructively & mindlessly stomping around overseas, while being protected by the Democrat slime balls controlling the House, Senate, and Lamestream Media.
The facts speak otherwise … here, we even have pictures for the Progressives …
http://www.agoyandhisblog.com/2010/03/26/every-picture-tells-a-story-dont-it/
Government revenue was increasing … we were headed back towards budget balance after the tech bubble and 9/11 shocks … and disposable income was increasing … even as we were fighting a two-front war.
Note the ABRUPT flattening of the employment graph right around January 2007. Looks to me like business woke up to the reality, that the cheerleaders for wealth redistribution now had the power to turn businesses into cash cows/social-services surrogates/scapegoats to further that objective.
Add to that the energy-price spikes (which would have been mitigated by the mere commitment to expand drilling), and the mortgage meltdown (facilitated by Re-, er, Progressive social policy, as others have described here), and you get the Carteresque malaise you are now seeing.
The question our author is posing is EXACTLY what needs to be asked … and people need to be reminded that it is Congress, more so than the White House, whose actions can profoundly affect your pursuit of happiness.
Now we have an even more dishonest incompetent and his gang of ne’er-do-wells trashing economies and destructively & mindlessly bowing and groveling overseas, while being protected by the Democratic slime balls controlling both the House and the Senate.
I guess you like this gang better than the previous one, but this gang has run up a much higher deficit and damaged our standing among nations even more.
2004 Senate Democratic filibuster of legislation to rein in Fannie and Freddie. The Pubbies tried to fix it, and the Dems stopped it. Why? Look at the campaign contributions list. Dems, Dems, Dems. Top umpteen names are Dems. #2 was none other than Obama.
Yes, BC, it was the Dems’ fault.
Yeah – that 4% unemployment and continual economic growth was a real b!tch wasn’t it?
It is astounding to read what democrat Leftists still hold on to. They are completely in denial that the democrat Marxist policies of the Obama regime do not work; they did not work in the Soviet Union, Cuba, China et al. It is sad to see these democrats reduced to calling a dead man names because they have nothing else to say. In truth there is no point in talking to these zealots; I avoid them like the plague, even in my own family, I refuse to discuss politics with my democrat brother in law who is one of the biggest cool aid drinkers. O tempora! O mores!
I remember the debate about the Fannie-Freddie legislation, and understood it’s significance on lending; It was baffling, how they legislated shackling the lenders with ‘mortgages for the poor’.
More short-sighted, ‘feel good’, incompetent legislation from the Democrat Party, designed to fail.
What makes the Democrat Party act like such big drunks when they get to Washington?
Yeah but just think of all the deadbeats that now have a home to call their own with no payments and probably even get government assistance for the utilities and food and even a free car so they can rob people that have more than they do to keep up with the Jonses!
Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?
If you consider losing my $65,000.00 a year job after 13 years two years ago, draining one of my IRAs to zero to keep my home, now worth half of what it was, no job on the horizon and despite government claims of “recovery” and the recession being ‘over’ 15 months ago; No, I’m not better off. I’m far worse off and getting worse every day. But hey, that’s just me.
Am I better off than I was 4 years ago? Lemme see. Insurance costs are up about 70% (25% this year alone). Food costs are up; salmon is up 50%, butter is up 50%, crackers are up 50%… Housing value keeps dropping, but taxes (income, sales, property, new invented taxes) are up. Retirement accounts worth about 1/2 what they were 4 years ago. Spouse out of work for 2 years.
But the folks at Goldman Sachs, the union workers at GM, the retired teachers in Chicago are all doing quite well. And our beloved president seems to spend 1/2 his time flitting from one vacation or party to another.
BC and Waters: Both of you are so deliverately wrong that to correct you both would mean that I recognize and subsequently validate your vapid and worthless rants. It is one thing for the MSM to lie, obviate, dissemble and obscure because their proclivity for mendacity is now well know as is their shilling for progressives and their agenda, but another to engage in debate with willful, ignorant slime balls like you two.
To blotto: Talk about “worthless rants” — I double dawg dare you to try to show how it is I’m wrong in any way. The recession started in 2007 and bottomed out in June of last year (note that the news media did their usual poor job at explaining anything — basically things reached their worst about a year ago and we’ve been recovering slowly, albeit top down, since then.)
I often wonder if all this over the top hostility and self-deception involving Obama by right wingers is some sort of cognitive dissonant reaction to their support of Bush, which slowly declassified documents are showing to have been, if anything, even worse than what was thought by his harshest critics.
But the bottom line is that we are better off, even if the likes of you are bitter about it because of idiot ideology.
We’re not bitter. You are.
(But it’s OK. We understand.)
Being both reading and critical thinking challenged, it escapes you that few if any PJM commenters give any sort of blind support to Bush nor did in the past. But with you, it’s blinkers on support of Obama no matter what. Anyone who can say we’re better off now than 4 years ago using the BDS benchmarks you did in your two comments is a buffoon.
All beside the point anyway because, as always, the point of the article escaped you. While Reagan is mentioned and prominent, the 4 years used in this article refers to congress, not Bush, nor Obama. Anyone claiming they are better off under the congress of the last 4 years suffers from blithering idiocy, not cognitive dissonance.
You get one vote, BC. All your smart friends also only get one vote. That’ll be enough for you Cambridge cretins to ensure Barney Frank gets back in this November – probably. Those you’ve called redneck suburbanites will be using their one vote apiece all across the country also. They’ll ensure Barney can’t do any more damage in committee. They’ll also ensure that congress as a whole doesn’t.
maybe your recession bottomed out..ours didn’t..infact, i would say yours is the only recession that has bottomed out….allllll over the world
Kyle Anne, as you can tell from the troll section of the bleachers, you can’t convince people of the truth, who wallow in a cesspool of lies and hypocrisy.
Let’s take a serious look at who is likely to be swayed at this point. Or galvanized. Or motivated.
As we can see from the troll scat above, the hard left are pretty much insane. They can twist, bend, spindle and mutilate the truth. As with Michael Moore, they would prefer that we build shrines to the “minutemen” who mass murdered our countrymen, right upon the ashes of their innocent remains.
You can’t reason with them, you can’t expect them to listen to facts…they are so indoctrinated in NYTImes style distortion, the truth is foreign to their ears.
The remainder of this country, those who have an open mind and not only are willing to listen, but desperately want to obtain truth and facts….THOSE folks are your target market.
I have a couple of suggestions.
Van Jones—Communist, signed petition saying 9/11 was an inside job…nominated as a “czar” in this administration
Anita Dunn—says mass murderer Mao Tse Tung is one of her favorite political philosophers—this is the director of communications for your country
Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, Linda Evans, Jeff Jones—once talked about killing 25 million of us, Robert Reich figured out how they were going to let us die…
Michael Moore says he wants a shrine to the “minutemen” built ON Ground Zero…
Eric Holder called us cowards, sued Arizona and refused to prosecute armed thugs who wanted to “kill cracker babies”.
Helen Thomas says the Jews should leave Israel and go back to Poland and Germany.
Prime Minister Netanyahu was left to eat dinner alone, so he could contemplate that attitude directed toward him, his country and his citizens.
Unemployment skyrocketing, foreclosures, bank failures, Fanny and Freddie bankrupt, trillions in deficits, higher taxes, “redistribution”, finger-pointing, blame shifting, but who has had a supermajority in Congress, held the Senate and held the White House while this was happening to us?
It’s the company you keep.
Or don’t.
November 2nd.
cfbleachers:
Those truths you state are self-evident to all except liberal trolls.
If any of this sinks in, it will make their ears bleed and their heads spin faster than Linda Blair riding a “Tilt-A-Whirl” on steroids.
The best we can hope is that they only upchuck the split pea soup on their earth shoes.
The saddest thing is that 5K American troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan for nothing. Well that’s better then 50K who died in Vietnam for nothing, and this is at least not a drafted force.
Would you care to justify your statement because I know full and well that their deaths were not for nothing as you suggest. The people of those two countries for the first time in their lives have the opportunity to have a say in their future. If you looked into their eyes and saw their tears of thankfulness you would not say that it was for nothing. Most of the people in both of those countries just want to live their lives and do well by their children. Our present in each of those countries has made that possible. I am not always a fan of nation building, but the deaths of our service members is not something to be tossed around lightly to further your agenda. They fought and died for freedom, which is worth a heck of a lot to their families and the families in those two countries. Don’t think everyone is an insurgent and that we are wasting our time because we have and continue to make a difference in their lives each and every day.
Mostly their lives were lost in vain, since Afghanistan will revert to chaos eventually and Iraq close to same if the US ever withdraws. Perhaps part of the reason to stay is to block that realization from hitting home across the political spectrum.
First of all the effort in Afghanistan was in response to a little something you probably never heard about that occurred on 9/11/2001. And contrary to the current pundit fashion we are succeeding. The mere fact that millions of girls are learning to read and are not submitted to Taliban nuttiness is a metric of our success. BTW, going into this war the smart guys at the Pentagon knew it would be a multi-generational fight so a V-E or V-J end to the war ain’t gonna happen.
As for Iraq, no one remembers, with good reason unfortunately, that Bush gave three reasons for attacking, WMD, Saddam’s support for terrorism and to bring democracy to the Middle East. The third IMHO and others was the main one because of 9/11. Another reason although not articulated was to make the terrorist supportering tyrannies of the Middle East (aka Arab countries) fear us. The problem is it is a package deal. You cannot stop the process or the entire program will fail. So it comes down to this, if we pull out of the ME and Iran gets the bomb, yes the losses in Iraq were in vain. If we continue the process and takeout Iran (which would be easier than anyone supposes) then yes we won and our men died in a successful effort to defend us.
Think of it this way, the war against terror is a war against the political culture of the middle east, it will not be over until these countries are different than they are now. BTW, if 9/11 teaches anything it is that we cannot disengage, the bad guys will be emboldened by our apparent weakness and strike at us in the US. Remember 9/11 happened because of two decades of appeasement, from the hostage crisis, to the Beirut barracks bombing to Lockabie.
Of course Obama and his minions do not understand any of this because they have a twelve years old’s view of the world.
maybe the question put forth by america’s best president since calvin coolidge(ronald reagan),and only true conservative since calvin coolidge;which is are you better off then you,or your parents were 3o years ago? we often hear that conservatism doesn’t work;”well”as ronald reagan would say.when was the last time you ever tried it?and when you did, did it work?the answer 1994;the contract with america.only problem,liberal republicans gave credit to bill clinton,to make it appear as liberal idea’s.and those like newt gingrich has bowed at the clinton alter ever since;my question is if it was clinton’s ideas,and policies,then why is he still promoting the same anti-free enterprise,capitalist system,and policies today that cost him,and his party a 50 year reign in congress.the same identical socialist policies that is collapsing democrat party control,under barack obama today.,as well collapsing,our free enterprise,capitalist system today.and liberals like the clintons,and obama’s know shut down the growth,success,prosperity, stength,and power of free enterprise capitalism,and you shut down the growth,success,prosperity,strength,and power,of independence,individual,and religious freedom,free will,and america;as the base of the democrat party,has never,been a representative for the united states;instead they have been political hit squads,representing the dictators of the world in the united nations(treason),and moderate republicans are their judas iscariots;we conservatives are always told by the r.n.c. who puts all the resources they begged for to elect candidates,that always are betrayer’s to the conservative principals they campaign on,because they lied,and the r.n.c.,and senate republican national commitee know they are liars,and self-serving embezzelers of the peoples money.whenever the american people realize they have been hustled,and lied too,and find a true conservative the republican establishment throws a temper tantrum,and threatens to sabotage the will of the people; there complaint.nobody loves me anymore so i’m going to break something;boo-hoo.saying there’s no room for moderates in the republican party,anymore;wrong there’s no room for godless lawless,lying,theiving,perverted,backstabbing,self serving,judas iscariots, anymore in the republican party;which always seems to be constant,from so=called moderates;which is code word for i stand for nothing,so i’ll stand for any thing,that personally benefits me.heil to the highest bidder politicians;our leaders were supposed to be like our countries greatest,sacrificial lambs; who sign up to serve the best interest of their country,humanity,life,liberty,and the pursuit of,individual,and religious happiness;political leaders,say they do but most only serve themselves;as for there’s no room for moderates;the opposite is true the republican leadership has for decades been nothing more than a lessor version,of the liars,theives, predators,perverts and deadbeats,that has controlled the democrat party,since j.f.k.bobby kennedy.,scoop jackson,and martin luther king;common sense days;as for the whining of moderates being pushed out;research history;dwight eisenhower,great heroic soldier,but moderate republican that should have listened to george patton,and not the u.n.the final chapter would have been written by now,and the debate over communism,would not even exist today that is being brainwashed into our children’s schoolroom’s,maybe even the last war;richard nixon,moderate republican;how’d that work out?gerald ford(gerald who?)moderate republican;finally ronald reagan;the american people finally get a conservative;american hostages automatically released from iran.21 million new private sector jobs,gorbachev removes its power over east germany,and bankrupts,and dismantles the soviet empire;even under a democrat controlled,and moderate republican congress,that sought to undermine,and sabotage his presidency,and his vision for america under conservative values.as well even some in his own administration,and his wife,wasn’t much help to his presidency,and public perception,either;why? moderate/liberal republicans,or liberal democrats,in gop drag;(trojan horses/judas iscariots/benedict arnolds all;)like all liberals representing society deatbeats,predators,the godless,the lawless,and the dictators at the united nations,over the u.s.constitution,the declaration of independence,the bill of rights,truth,equality,individual,and religious freedom and justice for all,the english language,and the american way;which is judeo-christian principals,and conservative values;ok;george h.w.bush;moderate republican;pledges no new taxes,and let freedom ring,right;wrong;raises taxes,and delivers his loyalty to the united nations;thanks to colin-oscopy,i worship marxist communism,and radical islam,obama moderate republican powell;who overruled general norman schwartzkov;who would have saved america a lot of lives ,and resources;under gerge w.bush;but george h.w. bush revealed his true loyalty;to the united nations,and the new world order.thanks to moderate republicans,and their gods progressives marxist communist regime.george w. bush like ronald reagan was improperlly served by the moderates judas iscariots in his party,and administration;as such he never saw a socialist programan,that his administration didn’t embrace,and sign into law,or,an anti-american illegal immigrant,they wouldn’t put above pro-american,law abiding immigrants;to give tax dollars,so they can send them to flight school,so they can fly into buildings,learn marxist”rules for radicals”textbooks,how to manipulate the american people,and their laws,political correctness,and shari’a law handbook for predators,and deadbeats;and like ronald reagan’s wife nancy;we now see who was these president’s most influential advisors behind the scene,late at night;his wife;which begins to make sense why george,became a socialist against his principals,and wants known society predators like the n.e.a.molesting the spirits hearts,and minds of our children;(read laura bush’s book,and her pathetic predatorial beliefs;)john mcain/look at the predatorial beliefs,of his wife,and daughter,and the fact he was brainwashed communism,for 5 years,and was totally dependent,on the generosities of his captors;(battered wife syndrome,patty hearst,etc.no fault to john mccain.but just look at his greatest influences,over the last 40 years,that should explain some of his votes,and choices;john mccain god bless him has never been a leader,he has always followed those who have not been america’s,greatest defenders;john kerry,ted kennedy,russ feingold,hillary(how much for your children)clinton,etc.to deny this possibility; is to deny”battered wife syndrome exist;and the same are molesting our children,with perversions lies,dependency,ignorance hate,betrayal,selfishness,sloth,addictions,and obsessions,for what eventually will destroy them;so name me one moderate republican,independent,or democrat.that has stood in defense of our children,against these professional,licensed,predatorial child molesters;no;you as always so-called moderate republicans,and democrats its not conservatives,that are intolerant to you;you,and your progressive liberal marxist communist predators,and deadbeats,that rule the democrat party;have been the one’s intolerant of conservatism;you, for over a hundred years have turned this country into,a modern day sodom,and gommorah,socialist ponzi schemes,rape the lives,liberties,rights,property,and children of the american citizen,programs.from social security to social engineering;no the american people have been too tolerant for too long.”evil flourishes when good people do nothing”american’s are fed up with we need a bigger party,full of backstabbers, predators,perverts,and deadbeats.not a purer party that benefits we the people,the u.s.constitution,the declaration of independence,the bill of rights,and rule of law;those that constantly claim conservatives,are stupid;yea we have been, but not anymore;because you’ve shown your true natures/colors.society predators,perverts,and deadbeats;jimmy joe;”the liarfryer”
Paragraphs, punctuation and proper sentence case are your friends.
Wow. Just… wow.
Might I make a suggestion? Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Dummies-Geraldine-Woods/dp/0470546646/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285100534&sr=8-1
I’m so sorry, I’m sure this is a wonderful piece..but paragraphs please..just break it up a bit .
let me add..i don’t care about the punctuation..just break it up thanks!!
HEY LIAR-FRYER: YOU HAVE MY VOTE! Alright, so your message wasn’t the eariest to read; big deal! It has substance, and you write with passion! What you say needed to be said.. and you said it… if it demanded more concentration – so what? Intelligent people, Conservatives, understood it; Progressives wouldn’t ‘get it’ even if you supplied art work! To my knowledge, you are the only writer to point out that in many ways, Nancy Regan was a hindrence. We won’t discuss those kids! At least Reagan had the support of Maureen and Michael (wife Jane Wyman,for those of you in Rio Linda)
Give AF_VET, Animal and Anonymous, their due. Their contributions are consistantly good. In Kansas, we call it ‘picking the fly-specks out of the pepper’ — but, we’re not going to let it slow us down!! We are a team.
WE HAVE AN ELECTION TO WIN.. AND A NATION TO SAVE!
I *am* better off now than I was 4 years ago – but not because of anything the Government did for me. I try to live and function in spite of the Government, not because of it.
That sir is true American spirit and you are thanked for it!
COLLECTIVE REJECTION of the past four years!!!!
No wonder Obamas went to church.
Personally ~ much worse off materially but much enriched spiritually.
I have great HOPE. God works all things for the good!
I LOVED THE POPE’S VISIT TO BRITAIN:)
Godspeed Kyle~Anne.
above is moi ~ of course;)
Died for nothing? You know, the traitorous leftist scum are on my last nerve.
We were ATTACKED, not just once…as is commonly assumed by the traitorous bastards who wish to build shrines to our enemies on the ashes of our innocents.
We were ATTACKED numerous times. On the Cole, in the prior attempt at the World Trade Center, in our embassies, at our seat of defense…in the Pentagon.
And let me tell you traitorous, lying bastards something else…the EVIDENCE about those attacks led all across the Middle East. There was a web of conspiracy that leftist scum wish to bury beneath their lies, distortion, and deceit. Died for nothing? Those who died and those who were injured and those who still live on…are heroes that defended this country from the madmen who conspired to kill our innocents.
Died for nothing? May they rot in hell, all those whose slimy portrayal of our men and women in uniform is slickly produced in animation, in Sean Penn rapists, in Charlie Sheen maudlin marauder, in Michael J. Fox’s creepy withering wuss.
Died for nothing? They served their country at a time and in a place where plots were being hatched daily to murder our citizens, and no ignorant cretin can take that honor from them.
Died for nothing? The cowards who try to shame them and this country into abject apology, bring it down to its knees, shatter its morale…by posting daily “grim milestones” and hailing the enemy as “minutemen”…ought to be tried for treason.
Died for nothing? They died so that we could live. They performed magnificently and those who want to resurrect the days when they were scorned upon their return, when they were called baby killers, when they were heaped with disrespect, ingratitude, and slander…can go straight to hell.
Not this time. This time, the leftists will have to go through us to get at them. Not this time, you don’t.
Died for nothing? Leftists don’t deserve a country that has such brave and heroic soldiers. They don’t deserve a country that defends itself and its people. They don’t deserve a country that honors its fallen. These creeps deserve the country they made today. A bankrupt, whimpering, apologizing, deep bowing supplicant to despots and dictators.
We have a choice in November. We can kneel before the despicable cretins or stand and be counted.
The State Controlled Urban Media will be puking out lies and distortions in the next several weeks. Got your State Controlled Urban media news today? Or do you prefer truth?
Crush these rotten, lying, traitorous bastards.
Vote. November 2nd.
And…this is from a lifelong centrist. Does it feel squishy and non-committal to you?
Died for nothing? Not on your miserable, weasly life.
Amen x 1000!
BRAVO!
With prayers that PAJAMAS MEDIA has the balls to develop a filter for the 2010 ans 2012 cycles to reduce/eliminate TROLLS OF THE DEMS.
Why? Their own words are the best argument against them.
cfbleachers, this is why I call them Copperheads. Haven’t changed, Democrats are still the party of slavery, whether plantation or collective.
Considering where I was four years ago (Iraq), I am much better off, but no thanks to the government and I am fighting daily to hold my own against wave after wave of BS out of Washington. I have moved across the spectrum on this whole issue of the Tea Party and what needed to happen, but one thing has never changed for me and that is we need to elect fiscal conservatives and hold their feet to the fire. We the people have the power to return this country to greatness if we only keep the fire burning and hold Congress responsible for their actions. I am a term limit supporter, but we get to impose term limits every two years, so now is the time to term limit progressives and in 2012 we get to term limit all liars.
A resounding “NO, I’m not better off. I’m much worse off” from me. The house we bought for $300k and still owe $220K on, is assessed by LA County at $130K. And you know they won’t under assess it. How many others out there are in a similar situation?
Oh Thank You – the Great One – You have SAVED me along with your disciples Reid and Pelosi. You made me part with much of my Crass Material World so I can be pure and simple. You made me part with my employees so they can explore the Joys of unemployment. You made many of my Customers hire Lawyers to declare bankruptcy. You have made the career of accountant a boom industry as they cut a mature forest down to print a snowstorm of 1099′s. You have even made my wife retire early rather than face being a Physician tending to their flock of Medicare patients that you so wisely cut reimbursements to so the O’care patrons can feed at the trough.
We will always remember, O Great One, what you have done to us these wonderful years of your Reign. We will celebrate you grace, kindness, and wisdom with a toast of Tea on Nov 2nd.
Best post of the millennium, thank you for the laugh !
Indeed.
And if we don’t stop the marxist subversives- black supremacists – filojihadists in November NOW and in 2012, we will all enjoy a pure and truly soviet life of poverty and silence (until the death panels will declare us useless, I mean).
All of you stop your crying.
I am better off, I got a 5% pay increase for the cost of living.
Oh, did I mention that I am a unionized government employee.
It is a good living it you can get it. It the Democrats have their way we will all be on the government payroll in one form or another.
I am 64 years old, I have never demonstrated in my life, I vote conservative, but when the election is over I back who my nation has picked. I have done this since I was 21 years old. NO MORE! I attended my first Tea Party event several months ago. And no don’t call me a stupid red necked racist. I’m not stupid, my lack of prejudice is demonstrated by my immediate family which includes South African born, Chinese born, Azorean born, Brazilian born and Mexican-American. I myself claim large part Native American heritage. But I had an epiphany in my living room here in the Central Valley of California. I could not believe that my President (Yes, mine, even tho I didn’t vote for him) was going to ram socialized medicine down my throat. Even though he and his co-horts knew that a large majority of our citizens did not want it. He not only discounted us, he tilted that chin of his, looked square into the camera and said, well, if you don’t like it–that’s what elections are for.
You are so right. that arrogant statement is what finally got me off my big rear end and has now energized me. I bring with me my entire family. The daughter who has seen half of her business evaporate along with her house’s value, the daughter who has taken in her entire family along with all the attendant pets. I am so proud of her to have said to her family, “I can’t give you money, but I can give you shelter until you all get back on your feet” But we are voting to be rid of this arrogant group of elites in Washington. And, if you are one of those with an R in front of your name, you will go, too.
Have many RINOs have sold out to special interests?
Vote Tea party, and throw all the stink out.
literally shackles the recovery
Where by literally, you mean metaphorically.
There are literal shackles attributable to the Obama administration, but that’s a completely different set of lies.
I blame medical technology. Too many white Americans have outlived their cognition, and the result of so many zombie consciousnesses floating about in a dissociative panic is the Tea Party movement. Do the decent thing, please.
Am I better off? It’s swings and roundabouts.
My retirement savings de-valued by 60% and are still going down. So in that respect, no.
But… my partner retired from 25 years in a government job, so is now making more than when working. And it’s indexed with inflation. It’s only the suckers like me who worked in industry that have seen our retirement savings disappear.
Meanwhile… I don’t live in the US, so our land taxes went up by 20% to match the increase in value of our home. And our dollar’s gone up by 20% vs the greenback, as your economy tanks. Ours isn’t in great shape, but it’s not a lot worse than usual. Comparatively, that means outstanding.
And in Delaware you’re either going to elect a Bearded Marxist, or someone who says they believe that both “The Flintstones” and “Pinky and the Brain” are docudramas.
Oh well, your country. But it will be a long time before international investment funds trust the mainly US banks again.
You are absolutely correct regarding what happened in the Reagan era and what has happened more recently and the total un-fazed, conscienceless, evil about-face of those who have deliberately caused the disaster as they point the accusing finger elsewhere.
However there is the possibility that they will continue to do so right until the wheels truly come off and people wake up.
Which can be summed up in the propagandist’s mantra:
You can fool all of the people some of the time,
And you can fool some of the people all the time,
But while you cannot fool all of the people all the time,
You can usually fool enough to achieve your objectives.
Well, how’s about after school specials on Reagan? How’s about school-friendly recorded speeches by Reagan? How’s about MTV interviewing the stars of the eighties. Even David Lee Roth talked about how happy and optimistic and fun the eighties were. How’s about Dinesh D’souza books on Reagan in paperback for the Scholastic book company? How’s about the Hayek comic book coming back in comic book form to comic book stores? It worked for 300. My kids know about Thermopylae. My husband learned about Thermopylae from a Tom Cruise movie.
I lived through it. If I wore Tee-shirts, I’d wear a Reagan one today. It was wonderful and scary and unbelievable. And it happened 30 years ago. My kids weren’t born then. A whole group of voters weren’t born then. So they want hope and change and great speeches? Reagan gave hope and change and great speeches- true HOPE and true CHANGE and amazing speeches.
The MSM tried to bury him then. Let’s resurrect his speeches and his life and his decades in the spotlight.
Honestly, good fruit tastes good, even later. I first learned about Reagan- not just my kids eye view- really learned what he was like- by watching a video from the library praising Howard Zinn. Zinn came off as a foolish tool of evil men- I’d heard that weaselling tone from slimey ex-boyfriends- but the little bitty clips of Reagan were completely compelling, completely different from anything I’d seen or heard. I borrowed a video about Reagan next. and then a video about “the commanding heights.” and then I started reading little books, and then bigger…..and here I am….Good fruit tastes sweet, no matter what, no matter when, no matter how little.
ari
I know I’m pretty far down the list of comments and it is unlikely that anyone will read it but I just had one thing to point out. This works against ALL incumbents, Republicans and Democrats. My wife is an independent and rarely votes except when there is something on the ballot she feels strongly about. She is planning to vote for anyone that is not an incumbent. If people like her had their way, EVERY seat at EVERY level would change hands. Personally I would accept democrats winning republican seats. We need to send a message to the GOP as well.
Better off than four years ago? Well, in my case, yes, but that’s not a reason I would vote — for anyone, for any office.
I vote — when I vote — for candidates that strike me as honest and principled: men of character whose demonstrated convictions about Constitutionally limited government are a good match to mine. I would never vote for a man I wouldn’t be willing to have at my dinner table. And yes, that keeps me at home during quite a few elections.
If voters in 2000 had cast their ballots according to whether they were better off than they’d been four or eight years ago, Al Gore would have out-polled George Bush. In fact, he did out-poll George Bush, and that might have been the reason. We avoided a Gore Administration solely by a quirk of Electoral College distribution. I’m grateful for that, but I don’t want to have to hope for it in the event that some other statist thug manages to hold the White House during a term of prosperity.
I expect that the Left will continue to deny and deflect accountability for the ill-advised but ideologically driven and politically expedient Community Reinvestment Act, while blaming the economic consequences on the banks that were compelled to follow its edict. The historical record is in play here and the Alinskyites must resist any association with or responsibility for the predictable and unalloyed failure of their socio-economic theories. Of course, the outcome is a failure only if one subscribes to the belief that the Left intended a positive social or economic benefit, and was not simply mobilizing its base by fomenting class warfare wherein the resulting economic damage was a desirable catalyst.
I would be interested, however, to see discussion had on the question of the millions of homeowners who, riding the artificial, demand-induced blow-off in housing prices, used serial refinancing to establish unsustainable lifestyles. Would anyone be surprised to find a direct correlation between those who used their homes as ATMs and those who in short order found their mortgages “under water”? When the paper equity gravy train disappeared, and with it the super-sized consumer spending it enabled, the cascading effects on retail sales, production, and employment became inevitable.
The only problem with partying like there is no tomorrow is waking up tomorrow. It may well be that the depth and breadth of the ongoing–and let’s call it what it is–economic collapse is the hard rain necessary to wake up a generation to the virtues of human capital and the practical limitations of consumer credit. And it may well be that meaningful economic recovery can occur only when the disagreeable medicine has taken effect.
Economic cycles are very hard to read, or else a lot more of us would be rich.
We certainly are not much, if any, better off than we were four years ago, but we did (apparently) dodge a total economic collapse. It’s hard to see that tough love would have worked when everything was collapsing around our ears, but at some point (I certainly hope) we will be ready for a change in economic policy. Of course, not enough people in the country in general and in politics specifically will have the will or clout to keep us on the straight and narrow, once the good times roll. Deregulation leads to terrible busts and regulation in the end does not do much to stop them, possibly just delay them and make them worse when they eventually come.
The underlying problems in the economy seem pretty much beyond anyone’s ability to solve at the moment, but maybe we can work up at least one more bubble. Some demand must be building up somewhere. I am of a mixed mind as to whether that is good for us in the long run, but in the short run, people will do virtually anything for increased economic growth.
Were the respective booms we had with Reagan, Clinton, and GWB all healthy growth, or just artificial bubbles masking our underlying loss of jobs and generally increasing deficits?
The answer is well beyond my pay grade, but the question does bother me.
Deep Blue is correct and Dwight is still believing this was an “unfortunate accident” of history.
The truth is that such a deliberate policy of destabilsing the capitalist system could only reall have been intentional.
It is nothing new, either.
At the opening of his masterful 1938 article on FDR’s New Deal, “The Revolution Was”, Garet Garrett writes:
“There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom.
There are those who have never ceased to say very earnestly, “Something is going to happen to the American form of government if we don’t watch out.” These were the innocent disarmers. Their trust was in words. They had forgotten their Aristotle. More than 2,000 years ago he wrote of what can happen within the form, when “one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the state.”
Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make sense of the New Deal from the point of view of all that was implicit in the American scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy, economic ignorance, and general incompetence to govern.
But it could not be so embarrassed, and all that line was wasted, because, in the first place, it never intended to make that kind of sense, and secondly, it took off from nothing that was implicit in the American scheme.
It took off from a revolutionary base. The design was European. Regarded from the point of view of revolutionary technique, it made perfect sense. Its meaning was revolutionary and it had no other. For what it meant to do, it was from the beginning consistent in principle, resourceful, intelligent, masterly in workmanship, and it made not one mistake.”
Ah yes, dastardly villains are more accessible than economic cycles.
Are We Better Off Today than We Were Two Years Ago?
The Great Communicator, the nation’s last true conservative president, Ronaldus Magnus, Ronald Wilson Reagan, won the election of 1980 against Jimmy Carter in large part because he asked the nation a probing question in their last televised debate.
Reagan posed the question that cut to the essence of what Carter thought was the electorate’s malaise: ”Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
As Kyle-Anne Shiver recounts, ”That simple Reagan question reached right into my heart of hearts and transformed me from a poppycock-believing, hippie liberal to patriotic conservative in one fell swoop.”
Indeed, it was one helluva question, one which Shiver suggests should be asked over and over by Republican House and Senate candidates during these last few weeks before Election Day.
As Shiver wrote on PajamasMedia.com, ”I would start putting that same slogan on every billboard and on every post in every town square in America. I would print millions of those ‘Are you better off now than you were four years ago?’ posters for folks to put in their front yards. I would make a gazillion bumper stickers and T-shirts and coffee mugs and I would open every single speech on the campaign trail with that question: ” http://tiny.cc/fazc1
It was a question that energized the Reagan faithful, the Reagan Democrats, and the electorate as a whole to cast their votes for a former actor and governor, the nouveau leader of the conservative movement since most people didn’t feel they were better off.
That momentous election led to a landslide four years later, to eight years of almost unprecedented economic growth, a rebuilding of our national defense forces, and of regaining our position in the world. Most importantly it led to a much-needed revival of American pride and spirit when we could once again envision our destiny as that shining city on the hill, that beacon of hope for all the world to see and emulate.
To paraphrase the old Virginia Slims commercial, “We’ve come a long way, Baby” in the 21 years since Reagan left office but not along the right way. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=2017)
Are we better off now than we were four years ago?
Well, let’s think about that.
The economy tanked in mid 2008, more than a year after the Democrats took control of Congress in January, 2007.
During the four years that the Democrats have been controlling spending in Congress, our debt has grown to 20 times what it was when G.W. Bush left office. (Never mind the unethical ways with which they wastefully spent most of that money.)
When Bush left office, also, unemployment was at 4.6%, and, in fact, it didn’t begin to skyrocket until the day after Obama was inaugurated, and, in fact, now, including people who have stopped looking for work, unemployment has reached 16.6%; 12% higher than it was when Bush left office.
And yet as smoke and mirrors and diversions to conceal and to deflect attention away from the extremely irresponsible and extremely unethical and extremely irrational behavior of himself and Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats in Congress, President Obama continues to blame G.W. Bush (and, oh yeah, Fox News, too) for the mess that he and other Democrats have created, childishly refusing to accept any responsibility for the consequences of their outrageous misbehavior.
Just a few of the many reasons why whenever President Obama asks us if we want to go back to the Bush years, sensible people think to themselves that we would LOVE to go back to the Bush years.
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ha ha ho ho barak obama got to go
weet weet deer meat
ha ha ho ho barack obama got to go
weet weet deer meat