OPINION: The Bush legacy and the 08 race

Unfortunately, Bush’s policies have not worked out for the good of the country. We entered this decade with the nation seemingly as strong as ever. Now we approach its close with really dark thoughts about the future of the country. The next president will be asked to get the ball back into the fairway, back into the green grass. Of course, whoever he is, he’ll have to stand on one foot, swinging in a briar patch, with half the nation booing his every motion.

We are engaged in two wars in the Middle East and we see no end. We are funding our wars with borrowed funds from the Chinese. Our national debt is now at $10 trillion, or over $30,000 a person. If we continue down this borrow-and-spend path, China will surely flex its financial leverage over us in a terrible way. We’ve given tax breaks to companies for taking jobs overseas. Many people are out of work, out of their homes, out of health care. We’ve lived under the religion that the market will always correct itself, only to see the blasphemy of a $700 billion government bailout of Wall Street.

Of course, John McCain is not George Bush, but I haven’t been able to distinguish where his views on major policies are substantively different. I don’t feel disdain for McCain. I think he is fundamentally a good person. But I’m confused by some of his policy decisions.

For instance, eight years ago, when he ran against Bush, he declared: “There’s one big difference between me and the others – I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.”

This showed independent thinking on his part. And I don’t understand what’s happened in the past eight years that made him reverse his position and embrace the current administration’s policies. How exactly has Bush’s trickle-down tax structure improved the nation's economic health?

Now, McCain’s promise of a $680,000 average tax cut for those making over $2.8 million a year is lauded by some as support for the American entrepreneurial spirit. Perhaps it is, but I can’t help but think it will also serve as a reward for many who rolled in the dough thanks to questionable practices that are crashing Wall Street. Perhaps some of those fat cats will start new businesses to employ those who pay taxes to support their government bailout.

Our Republican leadership championed deregulation for years. But the end result is that we’ve socialized debts on Wall Street for people who bundled our assets and debts together and gambled on them, raking in profits hand over fist when times were good. Then, when they were unable to back up their high-risk wagers, they turned to the government for help, a welfare action at its core. I’m still trying to understand what a derivative is, what hedge funds are. These terms are extremely significant right now, but not so easy to grasp. However, the more I study, the more I fear that the mortgage collapse is just a tip-of-the-iceberg event, and that the fallout from unregulated, Las Vegas-style derivative trading of recent years is going to bring considerably more heartache in coming months.

Honestly, I don’t believe we’re in a position to give tax cuts to anyone, not with our outrageous national debt, not with the bailout promised to Wall Street. But we’ve given cuts to the wealthiest under Bush, while many of us have seen no relief, save a stimulus check. I’d like to hold on to more of my money, too, which I actually would under the Obama tax plan — an estimated $1,589 break per year under Obama and a $763 cut under McCain. Perhaps I should be pleased for the government to keep a few hundred more of my dollars to expand long-time cuts for multi-millionaires. This is apparently an acceptable form of wealth redistribution.

No doubt, I’m skeptical of all promises made by politicians during heated campaigns. If you’ve paid attention to politics over any period of time, how can you feel any other way?

But I choose candidates based on policy platforms, rather than personalities. And I prefer Obama’s rejection of blind deregulation and trickle-down economics, the foundations of the Bush fiscal policy, which I believe have had a devastating effect on our nation’s economic health, leaving the middle class sinking into real hardship.

Likewise, it’s Obama who believes al Qaeda should have been our number one focus after 9/11. My deepest anger over Bush’s policies is the decision to turn attention away from the real killer on 9/11. Obama asserts that if we have actionable intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and the Pakistan government either can’t or won’t go after him, then we will kill him ourselves. I think that’s the right stance.

Obama has been criticized as naïve and weak for saying he will talk with our enemies without preconditions. But I think you show the greatest strength and have the greatest influence when you meet face to face with those who threaten you and tell them what you’re about and what you expect from them. You want results with people, you meet in person. I think that’s true at every level of human interaction.

Of course, some people view Obama as the embodiment of all evil. There are those who say he is a terrorist-loving, socialist Muslim who hates this country. This kind of argumentation is a very sweet sound to many ears, but vilifying candidates of either party does nothing for me except reinforce my deep conviction that nastiness too often overshadows reasoned debate in our political processes, hurting all of us along the way.

For better or worse, if Obama is indeed elected, that too will be part of the Bush legacy, since there’s probably no way it would have happened without the failed policies of the Bush presidency.

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal.