Bush; Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out!

By almost all accounts, George W. Bush is a failed president. He has the lowest exit rating since Richard Nixon, who was forced out of office and would have been impeached if he had not resigned. And now – shamelessly – he is currently trying to fix his legacy as he goes out the door and members of his administration are currently trying to spin their achievements. Make no mistake – the George W. Bush administration has failed miserably and was an unmitigated disaster – one of the worst in American history. Let’s review the facts.

 In a paper published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, John Schmitt and Hye Jin Rho [1] revisit Ronald Reagan’s famous question and asks if you are better off now than you were eight years ago when Bush entered office. Schmitt and Rho state, “By comparing the state of the economy in 2000 and 2008… we use 25 indicators of economic well being and economic performance and find that 23 of the 25 indicators are worse in 2008 than they were in 2000.

 David Madland, the Director of the American Worker Project at American Progress [2] writes in an article published in December 2008, … last month “businesses slashed 533,000 jobs, the largest monthly loss of jobs in 34 years. Unemployment rose to 6.7 percent, the highest level in 15 years. And 200,000 more jobs were lost in September and October than previously estimated [job losses the Bush Administration didn't want to admit before the presidential election in November]. There are now fewer jobs in the economy than there were two years ago, even though the population has increased by 5 million people during that time.”

 Madland goes on to say, “This month’s jobs report provides an important opportunity to put his record in historical perspective. The current economic downturn, which was just officially declared a recession last week  [one concludes that it was confirmed only this past week that the nation has been in a recession for the past year because no incumbent party in recent American history has won a presidential election while in a recession and the Bush Administration kept the fact secret prior to the election] marks the second recession of Bush’s presidency. The first occurred from March through November 2001. While a few other presidents have also had two recessions on their watch, almost none have had a record on jobs as poor as Bush’s. Perhaps only Herbert Hoover, the president who helped steer the country into the Great Depression, has a jobs record worse than Bush.”

 Madland continues: “While President Bush’s labor market record is better than Hoover’s, Bush has presided over the worst annual job creation record [in 75 years] of any president since Hoover. Most presidents in the 20th century have created jobs at an annual rate of between 2 percent and 4 percent. Hoover lost jobs at an annual rate of 4.4 percent, making him the only president to preside over an economy that actually lost jobs. While Bush has not lost jobs, he created jobs at an annual rate of only 0.4 percent through the end of November 2008. And the economy is now losing jobs at a rate of 1.4 percent per year.”

 Concerning the Bush Administrations record on income inequality, Madland states: “Bush’s record on wages and income inequality is even worse than his record on jobs. Under Bush, wages and income for most Americans have been essentially flat and income inequality has risen to extreme levels not seen since Hoover’s presidency.” The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a report by the Congressional Budget Office shows. [3]

The poorest 20 percent of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher. The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor of Economics at Columbia University and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics along with Linda J. Bilmes, a lecturer in public finance at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and a former assistant secretary for administration, management, and budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce write, [4] “In the eight years since George W. Bush took office, nearly every component of the U.S. economy has deteriorated. The nation’s budget deficits, trade deficits, and debt have reached record levels. Unemployment and inflation are up, and household savings are down. Nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared and, not coincidentally, 5 million more Americans have no health insurance. Consumer debt has almost doubled, and nearly one fifth of American homeowners are likely to owe more in mortgage debt than their homes are actually worth. Meanwhile, as we have reported previously, the final price for the war in Iraq is expected to reach at least $3 trillion.” The Bush administration has been lowballing the cost of the war in Iraq since it began. When U.S. troops invaded Iraq, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld estimated the cost of the war would not exceed $60 billion. An indication of enormous incompetence or an enormous lie.

Stiglitz and Bilmes continue by saying “Using conservative assumptions, we calculate that the bill for Bush-era excess – the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations – amounts to $10.35 trillion. The Iraq war has contributed to the U.S. economic slowdown and is impeding an economic recovery. This legacy will also have long-term consequences for America’s prosperity, and it will weigh heavily and immediately on the Obama Administration, which will need to spend money fast to get the economy moving again.” [4]    

 Robert S. McElvaine, who teaches history at Millsaps College, describes an informal survey [5] of 109 professional historians conducted through the History News Network where 98.2 percent assessed the presidency of Mr. Bush to be a failure while 1.8 percent classified it as a success. Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of 41 other American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations.

 Although it may be too early to obtain an historical perspective on the Bush Administration, it did not stop one historian from saying, “”It is a bit too early to judge whether Bush’s presidency is the worst ever, though it certainly has a shot to take the title. Without a doubt, it is among the worst.” [5] McElvaine describes one of the most distinguished historians as saying, “George Bush has combined mediocrity with malevolent policies and has thus seriously damaged the welfare and standing of the United States. Bush does only two things well, ”He knows how to make the very rich very much richer, and he has an amazing talent for mucking up everything else he even approaches.  His administration has been the most reckless, dangerous, irresponsible, mendacious, arrogant, self-righteous, incompetent, and deeply corrupt one in all of American history.” [5]

 And what about the human misery the Bush Administration’s elective war with Iraq has caused? The tragedy of the 4,124 American service deaths [8] and the official Pentagon figure of nearly 30,000 wounded in action fails to account for an addition 40,000 service members who have required medical attention for noncombat injuries or illness. American casualties are well documented but vastly understate the enormity of the suffering caused. 

 As of 2007 more Iraqis have lost their homes and become refugees than the population of any other country. Over 3.9 million people, close to 16% of the Iraqi population, have become uprooted. Of these, around 2 million have fled Iraq and flooded other countries, and 1.9 million are estimated to be refugees inside Iraq. [6]

 Iraqi civilians have suffered the bulk of fatalities in this conflict. Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties are highly disputed but estimates upward of one million Iraqi deaths exist. According to Project Censored, the undercounting and underreporting of Iraqi casualties has led to a widespread belief among the United States public that very few Iraqis have been killed. [7]

 A household survey of Iraq with analysis conducted by faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health has found that approximately 600,000 people have been killed in the violence of the war that began with the U.S. invasion in March 2003. 7% of the casualties being women and 46% being children under the age of 15. [8]

 As of January, 2007, there were at least 500 American amputees due to the Iraq War. A Time Magazine article reports: “The 500 major amputations – toes and fingers aren’t counted – represent 2.2% of the 22,700 U.S. troops wounded in action. But the number rises to 5% in the category of soldiers whose wounds prevent them returning to duty.” [9]     

A March 12, 2007 Time magazine article reports on a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. About one third of the 103,788 veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seen at Veterans Affairs facilities between September 30, 2001 and September 30, 2005 were diagnosed with mental illness or a psycho-social disorder, such as homelessness and marital problems, including domestic violence. More than half of those diagnosed, 56%, were suffering from more than one disorder. The most common combination was post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. [10]

 In January, 2008 the U.S. Army reported that the rate of suicide among soldiers in 2007 was the highest since the Army started counting in 1980. There were 121 suicides in 2007, a 20% jump over the prior year. Also, there were around 2100 attempted suicides and self-injuries in 2007. [11]

 There is no doubt that the George W. Bush Administration has been an unmitigated disaster. The man is a pariah. So Bushie – don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. And good riddance.

[1]  John Schmitt and Hye Jin Rho, “The Reagan Question: Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Eight Years Ago?“, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, D.C., Sept. 2008.

www.cepr.net

 [2]  David Madland, “Bush Economy continues Tanking ,” americanprogress.org. Dec. 2008.

www.americanprogress.org/experts/ madlanddavid.htm

 [3]  Congressional Budget Office.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/congressional_budget_office/index.html?inline=nyt-org

 [4]  Joseph E Stiglitz and Linda J Bilmes, “The $10 trillion hangover … Paying the price for eight years of Bush, 1-11-2009.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/59553.html

 [5]  Robert S. McElvaine, “survey“, History News Network .

www.hnn.us/articles/47818.html

 [6]  “Billboarding the Iraq disaster”. By Anthony Arnove. Asia Times. March 20, 2007.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east/ic20ak01.html

 [7]  Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation“, Project Censored.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/

 [8]  “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq”, pdf. Bloomberg School of Public Health Johns Hopkins University. 

 [9]  A Grim Milestone: 500 Amputees; Time magazine; January 18, 2007.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1580531,00.html

 [10] “Casualty of War: Mental Health”. By Claudia Wallis. Time magazine. March 12, 2007.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1598474,00html

 [11]  “Army Report Reveals 121 Suspected Suicides Among Soldiers in 2007, 20 Percent Increase Over 2006″, January 31, 2008, Fox News.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327048,00.html